The "30-second semantic pause"-Is It Rude?

I picked up an old book, by the late Count Alfred Korzybski-the founder of the “General Semantics” Movement. This was a cult-like organization that was big in the early 1950’s. The count advocated that when you are in a conversation, you should allow a pause of 30 seconds, before replying to the other person. This is to give your brain time to digest the info content of what was said to you. Korzybski believed that 30 seconds was the minimum that you would need to understand all of the innuendos, hidden meanings, etc., implicit in the statement to you.
I think this is a great idea! Besides allowing you full comprehension, you can also cool down-no point in getting angry if you have to wait 30 seconds to reply! Try it for a day-it really works!
this guy Korzybski was really on track! Just think-no misunderstandings from now on!
Would you be offended if somebody you were talking to adopted the 30 second rule?:smiley:

I might be offended - or, if not actually offended, perhaps a bit perplexed. I might assume he or she didn’t understand what I said. :slight_smile:

I would think they were deaf and would probably repeat myself…louder. :stuck_out_tongue:

It doesn’t take me 30 seconds to understand, comprehend and filter out hidden meanings in coversations. I don’t have to pause and think about what someone just said.

Geez, some people are so slow. :smiley:

Thirty seconds? That’s a long freakin’ time. I’m thinking of a typical “good morning” conversation.

me: “Good morning.”
other person: “Good morning.”
me: “And how are you this lovely morning?”
other person: “Fine thanks, and you?”
me: “I’m good – little irritated, a lot of idiots on the roads this morning.”
other person: “Really? My drive in was really smooth today.”
me: “Hunh.”

This conversation would take three minutes extra with semantic pauses…

I think it would totally end small talk. The off-hand banter you swap with people as you pass them on the stairs? A thing of the past – by the time you’ve given them the 30 seconds, you’re both elsewhere.

Person 1: “How are you today?”
Person 2: :: thinking ::

:: thinking ::

:: thinking ::

:: thinking ::

:: thinking ::

“Fine.”

Thirty seconds might be acceptable for a conversation via telegraph, but these are the go-go nineties!

[wait 30 seconds for irony to sink in]

Nelson Mandela’s speaking style has always irritated the hell out of me because he would pause for a few seconds every five or six words. AAAGH! Fast-forward, fast-forward!

If I was conversing with someone I knew was capable of conventional English verbal conversation (i.e. not deaf, senile, foreign or some other aspect requiring patience on my part) who waited 30 seconds before replying, the entire conversation would last until halfway through his second pause, at which point I would lose patence and walked away.

I don’t think a 30-second pause in conversation is even possible, because long before the 30 seconds are up the other guy will say something like “I said how are you doing! Are you deaf??” etc.

Verbal Fletcherizing.

Or they’d just keep on talking. Or maybe they’d think you’re nuts. But I doubt anyone really has the patience to wait thirty seconds for an answer to the question they just asked. What do you do during the thirty seconds, anyways?

How can you be studying the hidden meanings and innuendos if you are counting to thirty in your head? Or do you pull out a stopwatch? I have an aquaintance who seems to ponder everything you say, though not for 30 seconds, and it alternately makes him seems slow or smug. Either way, it is annoying and self-defeating and seems apt to add a lot of hidden meanings to further replies from your victims.

Whatever the “Count” may have said, I’ve never read that he ever conversed this way.

There’s a current commercial that I’ve forgotten the product for. A couple are in a posh restaurant. She says, “I love you.” He stares at her, doesn’t reply. She finally gets up and leaves. A few seconds later he says, “I love you too.”

It would be more moronic and boring than anything else.

Thanks…for…the …replies…I s the “General Semantics” movement still around? I read that after Korzybski died, the late S.I. Hayakawa took it over.
I use my 30 seconds to ponder my replies, amnd imagine that I’m on a beach in Hawaii!

Dammit, I was trying to reply to Dantheman’s post, but the rest of you won’t shut up!

It would be down-right ridiculous to do this during a normal conversation but we could apply something similar here on the boards. If we all read through our posts and the one we’re replying to once or twice before hitting submit, a hell of a lot of Pit threads could be avoided.

[sub](Note: this isn’t aimed at anyone in particular, just a general bit of observation.)[/sub]