Another Take On Tone

[akirlu]

Consider the possibility that if some one tells you your choice of words makes it hard for some people to hear your message, this may not be a request to shut up, it might just be a request to find better words. If you can't bear to have people ask you to rephrase, perhaps the problem does not lie in them.

Comments

[furzicle]

Excellent point.

[daveon]

I find the 'tone' argument terribly weak at the best of times. My 'tone' might be dismissive, or it might be English, or it might be, I wasn't concentrating all that hard when I wrote that short off the cuff response, or it might genuinely be I think you're an asshat. Complaining that you don't like the 'tone' of something written often seems to come hand in hand with 'I don't want to try to respond to the point you made so I'm going to complain about the way you said it.'

I very rarely see the 'tone' argument invoked in such a way as 'you what a what now? That doesn't quite make sense or I don't think you meant to say that'.

[oreouk]

But it depends what you are trying to achieve, surely. If you actually want a positive response and someone takes the time to say something that boils down to 'gosh, I might do that if you could only be polite about it' why should we not take that at face value? How you ask for something is an important part of the act of asking

[daveon]

Yes, you are correct. But as I said, I have found that most people I see using 'tone' as an argument aren't really suggesting a rephrasing of the argument but using it as a passive aggressive way to try and shut down an argument they're losing or when presented with a position they've not thought about before and suddenly feel uncomfortable

[oreouk]

:-) I think we're on the same page. I think I've seen fewer tone arguments (other than ones which arose in the Jonathan Ross thing and even then I mostly skimmed over those as being stupid and missing the point).