Cut the crap and just say it man. It seems like people can’t get a straight-forward sentence out of their mouth without adding a half dozen qualifiers to everything they are about to…eventually, say. “let to qualify what I am about to say with bla bla bla”, and then after they finally say something, “just my opinion of course”.
I usually only qualify my viewpoints if it’s in sheer sarcasm. For example: “No offense, but I think you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about…just my humble opinion, of course.”
^ Nice, yeah that style makes a lot of sense, soften the blow a little.
Thanks mate…I do what I can!
Well, I hate to say it and I’m not 100% certain, but I tend to agree with you most of the time on this one.
When somebody qualifies everything, I usually take the tack of quantifying everything. For example, someone says “I’m not 100% sure….” and I respond by saying “Well, I’m 64.71% sure…”. Or, if someone says “…, just my opinion” I reply with “what is your opinion worth in present value dollar terms?”.
^ No offence Eureka, and truly I am hesitant to say this, so don’t get the wrong idea, even given on the online anonymous nature of this conversation, I tend to think of myself as an amiable guy, and not the kind of guy who would say something like this even to someone online, and I think my friends and also friends of friends would agree with this assessment of myself…but that is really f’n stupid and annoying. That said, let me say, that what I just said is just my humble opinion, of course. Best regards.
It’s a side effect of the overly litigious nature of the business environment over the last 20 or so years. People who qualify almost everything in a non-business setting need a good hard slap though. That’s not just my opinion either, that’s a cold hard fact.
Purealpha, no offense taken. I really want to be careful how I word this, since I know it can be a sensitive subject, and I value your opinion and think that in some light we may be in agreement because I am 73% sure I was being completely sarcastic. Goodbye.
Most statements worth hearing do require qualifications because many people enjoy proving you wrong by taking what you say to ridiculous extremes.
Thank you gentlemen, that sums it up: 1) legal retardation, 2) over intellectual/verbal analysis instead of hearing what people mean.
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purealpha Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Thank you gentlemen, that sums it up: 1) legal > retardation, 2) over intellectual/verbal analysis > instead of hearing what people mean. 3) always being wrong and trying to give yourself an out (a certain someone at my work)
“Hello, I’m about to say something totally wrong and will now put qualifiers on everything I say so that I can bow out gracefully after you guys rip my stuff to shreds.” That sounds stupid. Oh yeah, I know this person too.
I agree with bchadwick, especially because not everything is so black and white. I do however believe that you can cross the treshold of being responsible and thorough to just giving yourself an escape hatch. Given a suitable context and qualitative and quantitive evidence that I can selectively use to back my views this my unadulterated opinion without qualification.