Comments on: Once your words have flown

By: anna tims (@ageingmatron)

anna tims (@ageingmatron) — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 22:16:50 +0000

I’m certain that most of the Twitter spats that flare up are caused by the inevitable lack of nuance and inflection. I admire you for handling this so gracefully for criticism is always unpalatable and many cyber folk are intemperate in their responses.

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:54:43 +0000

This is a very insightful post. Words are incredibly powerful, they have the ability to build up but also tear down….I have a half-scribbled post about this in my notes! Words can also be totally misconstrued (is that how you spell it?). With a blog, I think you need to be doubly carefuly and I’ve also had to speak to my daughter about this with her text messages!

By: Molly

Molly — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:13:39 +0000

Sounds like a good ethos to have!

By: Molly

Molly — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 10:57:03 +0000

Gosh – can you imagine? My mum would KILL me if I started adding emoticons to all my posts!

By: Molly

Molly — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 10:56:33 +0000

Words are indeed powerful. More powerful than we often realise I think.

By: Molly

Molly — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 10:56:06 +0000

That’s a really interesting phrase. I know exactly what you mean – if you’re writing a personal blog and you start self censoring TOO much you’ll risk losing the realness and authenticity of your words. For me, I always think that as long as I’m true to myself and write what I mean to write (rather than trying to please others etc) then if people don’t agree or interpret what I’m saying in a different way well… that’s OK.

By: Molly

Molly — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 10:53:26 +0000

Wise advice, as ever Sally. I have the same rule – there are boundaries about what I’d be happy to write about here or in an commissioned article, or talk about on the radio, because those are things that I know I’d be really upset if people interpreted in a different way to me. That said, I don’t think you can get too bogged down in self analysis because (as you rightly say) there’ll always be someone who doesn’t agree or who interprets your tone in a different way.

By: Fi

Fi — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 09:15:13 +0000

Great post! So true!

I’ve suffered for my words too – many times. I’m brave enough to write about controversial subjects and popular subjects such as sleep training and breastfeeding and get myself into a whole hero of trouble because the words are coming out of the screen with no voice, no tone, no empathy or sympathy – just as they are!

I’d not sorry too much Molly. Like Nickie says, no matter what you write there’ll always be someone upset or disagreeing with what you’ve written. But then that’s a good thing right? If we all agreed with each other what a very boring world it would be.

By: Molly

Molly — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 07:25:22 +0000

Not at all – and no need for an apology. You made me think and inspired me to write this post, so thank you! Again, my original post wasn’t intended to be snarky at all, but you’ve given me a good reminder that different people will always interpret things in different ways. Thank you for letting me include your tweet in this post. x

By: Younglee

Younglee — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:35:43 +0000

Some good points made in your post (and people’s comments).
One person commented that they lost a friend , I’ve recently lost a family member (of course there were other issues) due to them reading an email and taking a completely different meaning from it than what I meant.
And as my partner said, if somebody is reading something in a certain way they will keep doing so. Something in black n white is permanent and can never be taken back (even if it shldnt have to be)
I’ve learnt never to do any really important, personal correspondence via the written word!
Best
Younglee