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[NF] Failing at speaking AND writing?

lane777

nevermore
Joined
Oct 23, 2008
Messages
635
Generally most people fall into either catagory: They are proficient at speaking clearly & fluently or proficient at writing clearly & fluently. Which types are more susceptible to struggling with both?

Personally, I have difficulty with forming words for my thoughts. Or at least getting my ideas across is limited to concise sentences. Somehow I cannot get detailed - to be honest, most of the time I don't really care to, I do prefer to just generalize and get to the point - but it would be nice to be able to expound sometimes. Often I find it a relief when I can just "diddo" someone's else' comment.

If you have a habit for short sentences as well, is it out of your desire to condense information, or is it more of an inability to expand? If a combination of both, which of the two occurs most frequently?
 

SoAndSo

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Nov 16, 2008
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seriously, I have the hardest time getting the words from my head to my mouth or my hand. Mine is a combination of inability, fear, and that I simply can't stop the constant stream long enough to get them out.
 

Jack Flak

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Jul 17, 2008
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9,098
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type
Generally most people fall into either catagory: They are proficient at speaking clearly & fluently or proficient at writing clearly & fluently. Which types are more susceptible to struggling with both?

Personally, I have difficulty with forming words for my thoughts. Or at least getting my ideas across is limited to concise sentences. Somehow I cannot get detailed - to be honest, most of the time I don't really care to, I do prefer to just generalize and get to the point - but it would be nice to be able to expound sometimes. Often I find it a relief when I can just "diddo" someone's else' comment.

If you have a habit for "short sentences" as well, is it out of your desire to condense information, or is it more so a factor of inability? If a combination of both, which of the two occurs most frequently?
Oh yeah, that's me. My thoughts aren't in English, you bastards! You should feel lucky you get one sentence out of me.
 

Night

Boring old fossil
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Nov 2, 2007
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I can relate to this.

My biggest boggle is that sometimes I forget to season my ideas with terminology critical to third party comprehension. Instead of offering a sequential alphabet (A-B-C-D), I overlook key phrases in a rush to examine multiple angles. Alongside this sprint, I often try to work in potential connections that might add to global comprehension. Kind of like an organic brainstorming session. (A-J-P-14-H)

Neglecting details can leave folks confused. This is something I've always struggled with.
 

Simplexity

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I have the opposite problem you lucky bastards. I find it hard to be concise. I can expound and obfuscate all day if I wanted to, it's not taxing.

In fact most of the time that is what my writing consists of. I've had to consciously work very hard to adapt and acquiesce somewhat to peoples need for concise statements. I have a natural flair and tendency to key in on certain aspects or ideas and provide clarity to a more generalized audience.

It's probably due more to my nitpicking nature and my insistence on fully sharing the totality of my thoughts as to avoid any confusion. I'm very particular, I've found most people are not.
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
Joined
May 22, 2008
Messages
3,166
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INFP
Some stuff in our minds is not meant to be translated to words. I relate, yeah.

My speech is usually normal, but when I am in a very unfamiliar situation I might have some trouble pronouncing the words. Like, the "R" might sound weird and I realize it and it is because I realize it that the next "R" will sound a bit weird too.
 
S

Sniffles

Guest
Yes I can relate. I openly admit to be being a fragmentary and aphoristic style thinker.
 

Darjur

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Oct 26, 2008
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I'm good at both, technically. Practically, I'm a walking disaster at Lithuanian grammar and the only reason why I'm good at speaking is because I had to learn Greek oratory as the main part of my rhetoric lessons in school.
 

Anja

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My thoughts come very rapidly. Often, so much so that it is difficult for me to place them in an orderly fashion. For this reason I express myself better in writing.

Even then I tend to give TMI!

In conversation I find it easier to continue a conversation if someone kickstarts me. Need someone to form a singular basis as I tend to think broadly.

I never liked those exercises in English class where we had to condense material. But expansion? I can do!
 
S

Sniffles

Guest
There's nothing wrong with what you described lane777. Plenty of great writers and thinkers have had similar tendencies.

Here's one description of GK Chesterton I posted in another thread:
"Chesterton's background and training in the visual arts (he studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London) always influenced his writing and very likely contributed to the preponderance of image over linear argument so many commentators have noted (some favorably, some not). But he was a thereotician at heart...He was never an academic and never aspired to be one; preferring to refer to himself as a journalist....As a journalist, he plunged into whatever topic presented itself; this has lead some to criticize him for spreading himself too thin, never staying with one topic long enough to achieve scholarly depth...Chesterton never trusted the persuasive power of "pure" reason (which he associated with insanity), so it not surprising that his rhetoric inclines towards something less pure -- something that more nearly approximates the language one might hear in the community (as Chesterton would put it) or a third class coach than the language one might hear in a lecture hall."

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/nf-idyllic/6577-can-any-infjs-nfs-relate.html
 
S

Sniffles

Guest
Oh yes, let's not forget Lev Shestov here either :tongue:
"Shestov's philosophy is, at first sight, not a philosophy at all: it offers no systematic unity, no coherent set of propositions, no theoretical explanation of philosophical problems. Most of Shestov's work is fragmentary. With regard to the form (he often used aphorisms) the style may be deemed more web-like than linear, and more explosive than argumentative. The author seems to contradict himself on every page, and even seeks out paradoxes. This is because he believes that life itself is, in the last analysis, deeply paradoxical, and not comprehensible through logical or rational inquiry. Shestov maintains that no theory can solve the mysteries of life. Fundamentally, his philosophy is not 'problem-solving', but problem-generating, with a pronounced emphasis on life's enigmatic qualities."

Lev Shestov - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I still laugh whenever I read this.
 

Nonsensical

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Aug 2, 2008
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I am the same way..I have trouble sometimes speaking clearly..in other words, I stutter..sometimes, a little. It's because when someone asks me a question, or whatever, I automatically have a lot of retorts, and I struggle sometimes to get a few of the main points across..because most of the time, it's hard to wrap words, that mean so little in the face of an aspect, that it's often hard to speak clearly...words are my enemy sometimes.

For wriring though, I feel I am a little better. I have a little more time to find what I'm looking for in my thoughts, before I type it down, and often, I end up changing and rechanging things..it's hard to "finish" something, because I always feel like it's not good enough, or I could have worded something differently..
 

penelope

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Nov 17, 2008
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I consider myself to be a very good writer, but my speaking abilities are probably just average. I don't have any issues with public speaking though.
 

StoryOfMyLife

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Oct 27, 2008
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I definitely write better than I speak. For me, my thoughts come too quickly for my mouth to keep up well enough. I know what it is I want to say [sometimes], however it has a tendency to come out as some form of stuttering. Not in the way where I can't pronounce certain sounds correctly and on the first try, but where I'll hem and haw with 'um' 'and-and-and', and the like. Also, I stumble over words in speech unless I don't feel particularly harried to get out what needs saying. When I'm angry or excited seems to reflect my worst times trying to speak clearly *lol* It is then when I mix words up in my sentence, say things totally wrong, add extra syllables, or just drop the subject altogether because I can't even sort my thoughts out properly.
 

lane777

nevermore
Joined
Oct 23, 2008
Messages
635
Oh yes, let's not forget Lev Shestov here either :tongue:

"Chesterton's background and training in the visual arts (he studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London) always influenced his writing and very likely contributed to the preponderance of image over linear argument so many commentators have noted (some favorably, some not). But he was a thereotician at heart...He was never an academic and never aspired to be one; preferring to refer to himself as a journalist....As a journalist, he plunged into whatever topic presented itself; this has lead some to criticize him for spreading himself too thin, never staying with one topic long enough to achieve scholarly depth...Chesterton never trusted the persuasive power of "pure" reason (which he associated with insanity), so it not surprising that his rhetoric inclines towards something less pure -- something that more nearly approximates the language one might hear in the community (as Chesterton would put it) or a third class coach than the language one might hear in a lecture hall."

I still laugh whenever I read this.

I think I understand what he means when he states pure reason is "insanity," still, too bad he doesn't elaborate.

There's nothing wrong with what you described lane777. Plenty of great writers and thinkers have had similar tendencies.

Here's one description of GK Chesterton I posted in another thread:

"Shestov's philosophy is, at first sight, not a philosophy at all: it offers no systematic unity, no coherent set of propositions, no theoretical explanation of philosophical problems. Most of Shestov's work is fragmentary. With regard to the form (he often used aphorisms) the style may be deemed more web-like than linear, and more explosive than argumentative. The author seems to contradict himself on every page, and even seeks out paradoxes. This is because he believes that life itself is, in the last analysis, deeply paradoxical, and not comprehensible through logical or rational inquiry. Shestov maintains that no theory can solve the mysteries of life. Fundamentally, his philosophy is not 'problem-solving', but problem-generating, with a pronounced emphasis on life's enigmatic qualities."

I really enjoyed this quote. I find it humourous, to think of how many people are aggravated by this kind of reasoning. I however, relate to his way of thinking... I often ask questions that could not possibly be answered with our limited resources; I love to get creative and speculate. Most people just respond with blank looks. No fun. :dont:
 
S

Sniffles

Guest
I think I understand what he means when he states pure reason is "insanity," still, too bad he doesn't elaborate.

Oh Chesterton elaborated on this theme plenty of times in his books. Here's one example from Orthodoxy:
"Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also. Thus he believed that children were indeed the kingdom of heaven, but nevertheless ought to be obedient to the kingdom of earth. He admired youth because it was young and age because it was not. It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid. The determinist makes the theory of causation quite clear, and then finds that he cannot say "if you please" to the housemaid. The Christian permits free will to remain a sacred mystery; but because of this his relations with the housemaid become of a sparkling and crystal clearness. He puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness; but it branches forth in all directions with abounding natural health."

Or as he more simply put it elsewhere: "The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason...Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom."

This comes from Chapter 2 titled The Maniac.
 
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