How do they do it?

Just be yourself Wilso ;-)

Do what I do, just respond to anything that inspires you to give an opinion. More often then not, I hit cancel rather then the submit button because I decide it wasn't worth the effort to disagree or I didn't articulate it clearly enough to make any sense to anyone but me. I at least get the writing practice and get the opinion off my chest, even if it just goes into the trash can rather then as a submitted post.

No kidding, LOL! Keep it up Wilso, it's nice seeing you around ;-)

I think that one of the things that intelligent people need to do is to check out the conclusions that they have drawn in the past on certain issues. If new knowledge has made the original conclusion unacceptable, one needs to adapt one's premises to take the new information into account.

Hey, nothing is written in stone. When we stop learning, we are dead from the neck up. There is nothing more pathetic than a person who hangs on to previously held beliefs, even after the inaccuracies in those beliefs have been demonstrated to the person.

The thing I like about Wilso is his ability to put in a short reply what takes others three paragraphs.

And he asks interesting questions.


Joe

As is often the case, Phoenix, you have expressed my feelings in your post and in a far more articulate way than I could. Normally when this happens, I don't reply, but the nature of this thread has spurred me to do so.

Read a few posts by farmerman lately that make me include him in the original list. Wow.

flyboy804- The way to become easier with writing is to keep on writing. I think that you will find that as you keep expressing yourself, the words will begin to flow in an ever more efficient manner.

Wilso - at least you're fluent, lol. I read way too much as a kid, but I was aweful at any kind of speaking. Still am, really. I'll forget words just out of the blue. Sometimes I'll remember them in Spanish, but I can't seem to keep my English vocabulary from escaping every once in a while. I forgot the word "pride" in the middle of a class discussion once and could only remember the Spanish word, orgullo. I probably sat there for five mintutes trying to think what I was going to say until someone corrected me. When I was a kid, I would talk with my hands more than my mouth and sometimes just repeat the start of the sentence over and over again until I remembered the word. They called me the broken record player. I also end up repeating myself even when I don't forget things. However, I can usually type my essays in very little time at all, and I haven't needed to do an edit in 5 years, at least not in English, and my mistakes in any case are limited to simple typos. I once gave a great speech, but that was after DAYS of practicing, when I practically had it memorized anyway.

Wilso, I'm in your camp, I am awed by the width and depth of thought and learning here. But as we read reams of info and ideas here, we are cutting and pasting to our own brains, some of it will surely bubble up later when called for.

I agree, even I find it very difficult to put my thoughts on paper properly....

But then again, English is not my first language !! So I have an excuse

Like someone else mentioned, my penmenship sucks.

Typing has been a blessing.

I use to do letters-to-the-editor -- and managed to get lots of op ed pieces published. And I've had some successes with commentary that even boggle my mind.

I enjoy reading most postings here in the forums -- but there are some that are so mangled, they lose me even if they have something worthwhile to offer.

I'm trying I'm trying !!

I just need a little more time.
And some more books.
And another trip to Iceland.
And...
And...
And...

OK. I give up.

truth
All of you write quite well. I have taught in a university for a quarter century and the most difficult task I had was to read term papers, even those of graduate students. I would never do that again. But here I enjoy the writing style of most people most of the time, and we're writing off the top of our heads. So congratulations. One of the reasons I participate in A2K, aside from learning from some very bright people, is that it gives me the opportunity to keep up my writing skills--and to form new dendrites.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that I write much better here than in class - being that I'm actually writing about exactly what I feel like writing about at any given moment.

Re: truth


I had to read BA/MA-thesises for a couple of terms... and give notes. (In Germany.) I especially remember two papers ... my co-thesis supervisor didn't want to read them completely at first due to mistakes in grammar and orthography. (I -on the other hand- just understood what they meant, because I gave the theme :wink: )

Re: truth

That's so weird, I was going to write the same thing.

I often find that typing is a much better pace for me than speaking. If I could only talk this slow, then every statement that I made would be much more coherent and well thought-out. The problem for me is that I can't seem to think with my own voice ringing around in my head.

Like other people have stated, you can be great at some areas of life and only mediocre in others. You might be able to speak in some scientific jargon that I wouldn't understand whereas you won't be able to understand what I say about the intricacies of producing a didgeridoo.

I can actually speak far more coherently and intelligently than I can write. I seem to lose coherence when I try to type my thoughts. I wonder why that is. Lack of attention span maybe?

What an incredible straight line.

I just wanted to respond with a bit of nothingness -- just to show I had the power to resist!

Our brains are just wired differently