Word: wordless
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...work or play, everybody emits wordless signals of infinite variety. Overt, like a warm smile. Spontaneous, like a raised eyebrow. Involuntary, like leaning away from a salesperson to resist a deal. Says Julius Fast in Body Language: "We rub our noses for puzzlement. We clasp our arms to isolate ourselves or to protect ourselves. We shrug our shoulders for indifference." Baseball pitchers often dust back a batter with a close ball that is not intended to hit but only to signal a warning claim of dominance. The twitchings of young children too long in adult company are merely involuntary signals...
...Social Intelligence Quotient. Urged Archer: "We must unshackle ourselves from the tendency to ignore silent behavior and to prefer words over everything else." The evidence all over is that while people meander the earth through thickets of verbiage (theirs and others), many, perhaps most, do pay more attention to wordless signals and are more likely to be influenced and governed by nonverbal messages...
...bloody history of the world ought to be the first item of evidence in any case against relying on wordless signaling in international affairs. The opportunities for misunderstanding are immense and constant. Says Harvard Law Professor Roger Fisher, a specialist in international negotiations: "The chances of properly understanding signals in the midst of conflict is always very slight." For instance, during the Iran hostage negotiations, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, intending to signal the belief that U.S.-Iran problems could be resolved, spoke of restoring "normal" diplomatic relations. Iran mistakenly took that to mean a return to things as they...
Sooner or later, for any word lover, the human habit of wordless signaling leads to a simple question for which there is perhaps only a complex answer. The question is why has language, given its unique power to convey thought or feeling or almost anything else in the human realm, fallen so short as a practical social tool for man. The answer is that it has not. Instead, the human creature has fallen short as a user of language, employing it so duplicitously that even in ancient times the wise advised that people should be judged not by what they...
...used to stick his finger in his ears while he was playing to check intonation. Said he could hear himself better that way." Tenor Saxophonist Teddy Johnson: "He was always ready for a laugh, always joking, making up nicknames for people. I called him Big Chief." There is wordless comment in the fact that musicians from not only Society Jazz but several other bands (Olympia, Tuxedo) have turned out to make sure that one of their own gets a fitting sendoff...