Have you ever had the feeling that someone was annoyed at you for something that you had done or said or written that was not what you had actually done, said or written but they just thought it was?
I was on the Hometalk Website one day and decided to leave a comment on a kid's craft someone had shared.
I mentioned that I loved their idea and it had given me an idea for something to make for my SS kids.
A few days later I noticed that I had a notification that someone had replied to my comment.
In I go to see if someone was asking me what my idea was, or if the author of the post was saying thank you for the comment only to be really taken aback with what I saw.
The reply to my comment was a sharply written one which basically was asking
What did you mean by SS?
I was very thankful that someone else had already seen it and replied with
"I'm sure she means her Sunday School Class"
and I then replied to confirm that was indeed exactly what I had meant.
Glancing at the location of the person who had asked the question I saw we were writing to a lady from Germany. Obviously she had taken another meaning for my abbreviation.
How many times do we take for granted that people will know that we mean?
How many times do we just assume that people will understand because we know what we mean?
Perhaps I should have known better because I had lived in Belgium for over 6 years and in that time conversed with many different nationalities on a regular basis and there were times when there were misunderstandings just to do with phrases used in one language and how they translated to another language.
I have also lived in the US for 3 years and remember an instance where something I said could easily have been misunderstood when shopping with an American friend one Christmas
Looks like we need to think twice before we write!
I teach English as a Second language each week and I need to think carefully how I say things to the students - so I should be good at this.
Do you think twice before you write?
Have you ever written something that someone misunderstood completely?
