Art of Eloquence Blog — exaggeration RSS

I touched on this briefly in my post a couple weeks ago, Communication Lessons from Fairy Tales, but here is a more in depth look at this phenomenon. Words like awesome, fabulous, I’m STARVING, DEAD TIRED… everyone says them, but most don’t truly mean them.  Are we desensitized to them so much now that these words don’t mean anything anymore? When someone with thyroid disease or fibro says I’m exhausted.  Most think tired. When someone is truly in pain and says it’s excruciating.  Most think it hurts. When someone is clinically depressed or has had a death in the family and says depressed, most think sad. What's the danger in this? 1. Using inflammatory words too often will give the impression...

There are communication lessons for us in just about every area of life.  That's because communication affects every aspect of our lives from birth to death and from relationships to business and ministry. I'm starting a new segment on the Art of Eloquence blog each month called, Communication Lessons from Fairy Tales and this month I start with the most obvious: Lessons from "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" Everyone knows the story.  A boy cries wolf so often people no longer respond to his pleas and then, when a real wolf threatens him, nobody believes him enough to help when he really needs it.  We see this played out differently in the technological age where car alarms go off day...