The Art of Saying Nothing
There is an art to saying nothing – in finely crafting your words so that they are devoid of any meaning.
“When Holk, after two days of steady work, succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications – in short, all the goo and dribble – he found he had nothing left. Everything canceled out.”
“Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn’t say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed. There are the assurances you had from your precious Empire.”
– From Issac Asimov’s Foundation
Crafting your written or spoken words so that they are devoid of meaning allows the audience to twist the speaker’s words, letting the audience hear what they want, without the author or speaker having to make a single guarantee.
For example:
- empty promises
- half-truths
- inserting ambiguity
- disguising uncertainty
- all of politics
- poetry
- technically telling the truth
- Or, just cleaning up a bit of your writing
These are the ways to speak without saying anything.
1: Perfect the Art through Adverbs, Adjectives, and other Qualifying Additives
Adverbs and qualifiers are important to the art of saying nothing. Certain words are almost meaningless. Not only that, but they are like black holes, sucking every little morsel of value out, eclipsing all meaning. For example: soon. When is soon? No one knows. If something is to happen soon, then it functionally never happens. When you don’t know when something will happen, it’s best to say that nothing, then to get someone’s hopes up with a soon.
Another black hole of a word: think. People know that what you say is what you think. But, when a person says that they think something, what they say is thrown into question, and doubt is cast. It renders the entire statement null and void.
If all else fails, be intentionally vague. Throw everything into question and give no discernible answers. Like with the word ‘soon,’ vagueness ensures that nothing said can be counted on. This weakens intensity and certainty.
Other words to avoid:
- I think
- Obviously
- Somewhat
- Relatively
- Maybe
- Possibly
- Perhaps
- Perchance
- Might
- Literally
- Honestly
- seemed
- roughly
- approximately
- apparently
- about
- around
- more or less
- etc.
2: Contradictions Can Say Nothing
Something I have noticed is people using contradiction to express more complicated feelings (e.g. I love it, but I hate it.). Thankfully, this doesn’t appear too often, but it is always annoying when it does. It can sound poetic, but it doesn’t mean anything. If a person feels conflicted about something, it would be best just to say that. Unless, of course, said person wants the appearance of scathing something without having to put in the work.
3: Cliches and Buzzwords and Other Forms of Filler
I’m not convinced that buzzwords are natural and not some by-product of one of the nethermost regions of some bureaucratic hell. Most idioms and cliches are fine or at least not terrible. They serve merely as a shorthand or a way to easily express complex meanings. Other cliches, such as, ‘it is what it is,’ mean nothing. Like the aforementioned useless qualities, these phrases mean nothing. The difference is that cliches and buzzwords can be inserted anywhere into a discussion. These aren’t black holes as they don’t render the entire phrase meaningless. However, if a person uses them often enough, they can bog down speech/writing, making any meaning hard to parse.
Some of these phrases are not meaningless, but instead are just longer forms of other words. These still garble up language, mudding any meaning.
Such words/cliches are:
- Synergy
- That was then; this is now
- Get granular
- It ain’t over ’till it’s over
- Things will get worse before they get better
- Who can say
- Expect volatility
- Going forward
- Paradigm shift
- etc.
Conclusion
So, people can use qualitatives, contradictions, buzzwords, and cliches to muddle sentences and obscure meaning. There is a real art to saying nothing. This art is not just about saying things in a way that makes them sound smart, but making the meaning of words difficult for readers to find, disguising the fact that there isn’t one. Hopefully, speakers and writers will become more discerning and we’ll see less of these things in the future. But we can only hope.
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