Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site unc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!unc!fsks From: fsks@unc.UUCP (Frank Silbermann) Newsgroups: net.singles,net.flame Subject: Re: Intelligence? Message-ID: <503@unc.UUCP> Date: Thu, 27-Jun-85 13:22:31 EDT Article-I.D.: unc.503 Posted: Thu Jun 27 13:22:31 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 30-Jun-85 01:29:15 EDT References:Reply-To: fsks@unc.UUCP (Frank Silbermann) Organization: CS Dept., U. of N. Carolina at Chapel Hill Lines: 27 Xref: watmath net.singles:7567 net.flame:10883 Summary: In article dimitrov@csd2.UUCP (Isaac Dimitrovsky) writes: >More important than intelligence [in friends] is the ability to speak clearly. >Very few things irritate me more than people who don't say what they mean >as clearly as possible, especially if they appear to be generating this >confusion on purpose (this is not to say that I never do this - when I do, >I get irritated with myself :-). > >It seems to me that intelligent people, especially ones in academics, >are more prone to sloppy, obscure speech than the general population, >though they still rank behind the State Department. If you don't believe >me, check out the nearest academic journal. I'd better stop before >this turns into a flame. Only inferior people are prone to sloppy, obscure writing. They do this to hide the triviality of their ideas. Fortunately only other inferior people are fooled. Actually, some people do this not out of stupidity but rather out of arrogance. Such a person believes that the time that he might spend rewriting is more important than the time wasted by all the readers trying to decipher his gibberish, even though he is saving only one person's time (his own) at many other people's expense. This also goes for the way some people write computer programs. Frank Silbermann