Do You Say What You Mean?

Do You Say What You Mean?

It's generally accepted that the majority of people learn to speak from a very early age, and on average a basic vocabulary is formed between the ages of four and six years old. As we get older our method of using language changes and we end up speaking in such a way that if everything we said was to be taken literally the effects could be amusing or tragic. With language, we know what we want to say; we often think we have said it; unfortunately, more often than not - we haven't.

Some years ago, I worked in a taxi office taking bookings over the phone. You would assume that it would be simple enough to say,