Late Night Musings: Precision of Language — What Does it Mean to be “Prolific?”

”She's a prolific artist; he's a prolific writer.”

We say these things but what do they really mean? What constitutes being ”prolific?”

The reason I find myself pondering this is that someone described me as a "prolific blogger and writer" to someone else, today.

I suppose a person could make that argument, but I look around me and I see so many other people who have published dozens of books and have been writing for magazines for 30 years and I don't think of myself as particularly prolific.

I suppose it becomes a matter of context.

There are people who might even say that I'm a prolific writer here on Steemit, but when I take a look at some of the other bloggers here, my 1400-ish posts don't seem like all that much; not even enough to get me into the top 500.

So, back to the drawing board — what does it mean to be ”prolific?”

OK, so I'm actually not looking for a specific definition of prolific. I'm just looking at some of these words we use every day that seem to mean something but we don't have any clear sense of what that actually is.

Consider some of them:

Having fun.
Being a nice person.
Being creative.
An awesome experience.
A decent Human Being.

None of these bits of terminology actually have any kind of clear cut meaning by themselves. In fact, you could argue that their interpretation is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Consider that my idea of having fun might be entirely different from your idea of having fun, and even though we're both respectively having fun, neither of us can imagine why the other person is not having fun.

It is through this type of ambiguity that an awful lot of misunderstandings, arguments and even fights break out, because we are actually (and rightfully so) pretty convinced that what we're saying is true!

Of course, the bottom line is that we tend to forget that other people can't see what's going on inside our heads. We say something, and automatically assume that what we described is accurate enough let somebody else who's not familiar with what we're thinking fully understands what our intention is.

Sometimes I just find myself amazed at the fact that communication works at all!

So remember: Just because something seems super clear and super obvious to you, does not mean the intended meaning is at all clear to the person you are talking to!

Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your week!

How about YOU? Do you think some of the ways we use language are more likely to lead to MIS-understanding, than understanding? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — NOT A CROSSPOST!!!)
Created at 20210510 22:32 PDT
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