I think I don't know enough.

Dagmaraka has spent a goodly partly of her life to get folks to talk.

I don't read her any more as she is not here now and I don't facebook.

I take her as right, re talking.

Most of us really dont know what we sound like when e type on line. We feel that we are being perfectly understandable and reasonable but e may actually come across as "snotty". SOmehow I think we have to stop taking many posts so seriously and critically.

The subject matter of a serious debate, thats another matter. Many of us (and I include myself) get tempted into descending into a bit of insult when e feel like the other side is being dismissive or isnt paying attention.

I was reading an article about texting etiquette wherein the PERIOD can be considered a snotty pice of punctuation when used in a tweety or Facebook.

Maybe the FB and the tweety realms arent made for multi page discussions. I tried tweeting for students notices for a while and then stopped. I was getting all kinds of silly garbage back and I wanted to avoid getting students feeling as if I were hollering. (Im not good at tweeties so I just quit it entirely and the kids can read stuff that I post on the mailframe)

I've never tweeted as the way one words things doesn't appeal to me. I do read people's tweets when they are quoted somewhere, for example, in a sports news article, but otherwise have no interest.

What do you mean by talking?
What is going on here on a2k is that talking? or do you mean facebook and twitter?
Or is it oldfashioned talking with a person who is sitting acorss from you?

How would you define this?

I mean all kinds of talking: our conversations here, yes, but countries talking with each other through diplomacy, strangers talking on a bus ride, debaters picking sides of a situation to make points, people writing articles or even books to express their views and/or their knowledge. Many people who post here question how to talk to a girl, woman, boy, man that interests them, many of them really stumped.

I see a lot of rage around, yes, including in myself; the world seems chockablock full of it. I see talking as useful, but so is listening.
My mention of the former a2ker Dagmaraka was because she was (and maybe still is) a woman who worked as a conciliator between factions in some countries, very interesting job.

I met Dag. She was quite wonderful to talk with. Very unassuming in demeanor. Very attentive and good at shutting up and listening. I liked her very much.

Re what Farmerman said about not fully understanding how we are perceived...

That's such a tough one. If in person, you look at faces and postures. If at a distance, you check other things like written responses and try to gauge the tone of them. If there's a response.

I've written comedy routines. I've written song lyrics and melodies. I've written long political things. I've written thousands of jokes. Some gain an audience, others don't, or you just don't know. The whole enterprise can
seem, at times, bloody impossible. And the more of it we do, the more we put ourselves at risk in a bunch of ways. I've died as a stand up comic. It really, really hurts. And I've killed' em too. And that feels extraordinary.

But when I'm not engaged with others in a rich or challenging way, I quite frankly lose the most fundamental reason for me to be alive and sentient.

I'll add a little anecdote here. When I went back to university at about 35, one of my first course was in Logic. Great prof. Just a nice and very smart guy. Early on, he invited me to come to his office for a talk after class. He asked what it was like to be back in school. I told him I'm quite forgotten what it was like to raise my hand to a professor's question and to enthusiastically give the wrong answer.

Made me laugh, you did.

First of all people are so different, but so are nations when it comes to talk.
In Sweden you can travel in a train for hours and noone speaks. I even have noticed people sending sms to oneother not disturbing other passengers.

Normally you do not talk either in a bus even on a long strech. I did get into a conversation once with a young woman. When we got to her stop after a couple of hours she shook my hand and thank me for talking and listening.
In GB people are nice but keep a certain distance.
In Germany they talk and in contrast to Sweden and Denmark there seems to be a certain how fast can I interrupt another person.
I am often teaching people who will work and live in Sweden or Denmark.
I sooner or later have to show them to talk slowly, not interrupt, eat slowly and not gulp down the food. It is a tricky thing, isn´t it.
There is a great difference in talking to and talking with a person and the best is a good conversation.