Dear Friends:Words are tools. They can comfort and they can hurt. They can be calm and reassuring -- but they can also be weapons; weapons to cause irreparable hurt to others, and weapons to cause irreparable hurt and regret to yourself. We are judged by our words. Choose them wisely, and choose them well.
Obama says words ill chosen, calls white policeman (AP)
AP - Trying to tamp down a national uproar over race, President Barack Obama acknowledged Friday he had used unfortunate words in declaring that Cambridge, Mass., police "acted stupidly" in arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. "I could've calibrated those words differently," he said.
AP - Trying to tamp down a national uproar over race, President Barack Obama acknowledged Friday he had used unfortunate words in declaring that Cambridge, Mass., police "acted stupidly" in arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. "I could've calibrated those words differently," he said.
A good vocabulary, and a good general command of your communications techniques is extremely important. But what is equally, if not more important, is to take the time required to foresee the effects that your words may have upon others, and to use them with great caution and delicacy. Choose your words with your audience's sensitivities in mind. Don't risk being misunderstood. Think first -- then speak.
Respect the power of words.
Faithfully,
Douglas Castle
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