I am going to write a sentence..."Hey, what are you doing?"You have just read a sentence.How did you interpret that sentence?Hint: There are 3 general ways to interpret the very simple sentence above (though, much more than that, but I will use the following 3 to make a point)...1) Friendly, as in fun curiosity.2) Neutral, as in a general question.3) Hostile, as in an accusation.The point I am trying to make is that the sentence was "written" to you, and not "spoken" to you. If you never met the individual writing the sentence, the interpretation is probably going to be based on the reader, not the writer. Lets pretend there is no additional content, so you have to interpret based on only what has been written.On that pretext, suppose you are in a good mood; you would probably interpret that sentence with #1 or #2. Suppose you are in a bad mood; you would probably interpret that sentence as #2 or #3.Now lets suppose you had a pre-disposition about the person writing the sentence.On the above pretext, do you think that prejudice may result in how you interpret the sentence? For example, the person writing the sentence actually wrote it to be interpreted as #1, but say you just don't like that person, for some reason or other, and interpreted what they wrote as #3. Now extrapolate what I just stated into an entire correspondence. The person writing, is writing in a positive context, but the person reading, is reading in a negative context. How do you think that correspondence is going to escalate? For example, the person reading, if subject to a negative pre-disposition, is going to see hostility from the person writing immediately. The person writing is possibly going to start seeing signs of hostility in the readers return correspondence, because direct hostility is usually easier to interpret, whether written or spoken, than non-hostility. At that point, the person writing will probably be getting frustrated, because they see their being misinterpreted, but the biased toward them is so strong that everything they write comes out negative to the reader. Now, the writer is probably getting frustrated, and their return correspondence will start to reflect that. That frustration will show up to the reader, who already sees everything written to them as hostile, and be interpreted as

Hey:What you're saying is valid, but relative. Writing has no tone, but there's word arrangement. Writing something in a specific order will make a huge difference, and most of the time that sort of use is on purpose. For example, if I want to correct you about something, I could go:"What you're saying is valid, but relative" - Neutral"I don't think so, that's wrong" - Aggressive"You make a very good point, but" - FriendlyI chose #1 because I am have no reason to be more aggressive, or more polite than usual. I don't think it's a matter of being biased, I think it's a matter of how you write things. Sometimes the most simple words put in a specific order can be pretty vitriolic, and get somebody's artillery on high alert.DP

Agreed with both posters. However, that's one of the reason many messages are populated with 'smileys' in an attempt to guide the reader to the right context.I figure, if it CAN be misunderstood, it WILL - by someone so it's better to do the :) and hope for the best.Vic

Both of your responses are just what I was hoping for in this post. Hopefully, this topic will promote thought and constructive ideas in how we communicate, especially when writing is the only method.I admit that I don't use the icons (yet), and will learn from that for my future communications.Jim

I took it as funny actually. im in front of my computer, duh! But yea youre right. thats why i moved here from the other sites forums. here people are mostly nice and sincere. like chris.the other site they would just flame..its all in interpretation I suppose! Ain't english grand!