“I guess it’s totally subjective and therefore fairly meaningless, but I think Chrome is the most visually appealing of any browser right now. This is partly, I guess, because its primary virtue is minimalism, but the parts that are there are beautiful, I think.”
That’s an example of what I mean. “I guess it’s totally subjective and therefore fairly meaningless, but I think ” is filler. It doesn’t add anything, we already know it’s his opinion and it’s subjective. But if what if he’d been more blunt? What if he’d written -
“That’s weird. I think Chrome is the most visually appealing of any browser right now. Its primary virtue is minimalism, but the parts that are there are beautiful. I don’t get how you could think otherwise.”
Leave out the last sentence, and I would definitely respond to the second better than the first. Pointing out that one’s opinions are subjective is vacuous, it’s obvious enough that I’m inclined to think less of someone who bothers calling attention to it, and the “and therefore fairly meaningless” part makes it considerably worse. It’s way too self effacing, and triggers in me the kneejerk response “if it’s so meaningless, why bother bringing it up?”
Whenever I encounter someone prefacing a statement with “this is just my subjective opinion,” or some variation on that, it immediately causes me to revise my opinion of them downwards.
The examples you keep bringing up seem to be sledgehammer approaches to politeness. It’s better than sledgehammer rudeness, but it’s not well optimized for smoothing social interactions.
Why do you keep the hedge phrase “I think” in your improved version?
After all, “I think” is just as meaningless as the hedge phrases you remove: I already assumed that you think it, otherwise you wouldn’t have said it. So, if hedge phrases are bad, “Chrome is the most visually appealing...” would be even better.
Unless you agree that hedge phrases have some value, in which case this is much more of a “haggling over the price” sort of disagreement than it seemed at first.
I do agree that hedge phrases have some value. They have more or less use depending on the social circles you’re dealing with. Here, you could probably leave out the “I think” as implicit, but in many circles dropping it would be taken as abrasive and overprivileging of one’s opinion. Remember that there is no shortage of people to whom “other people don’t have to share your opinion” seems like a genuine insight.
I’m not taking issue with lionhearted’s general point that social signals that would seem fluffy in this community can be legitimately useful in many situations, but like many others in this thread, I question his grasp of what sort of signaling actually tends to be most effective.
An introductory phrase need not be a ‘hedge phrase’ in the sense of demoting the following statement—it can just serve to position it properly.
I find a good medium to be ‘I find’, or ‘It strikes me’, or ‘It occurs to me’, depending on context. These are clearly indications of subjectivity without denigrating subjectivity.
“I find Chrome to be the most visually appealing…” is not confrontational at all, and in terms of added length it’s 3 short words (‘I find’, and using ‘to be’ instead of ‘is’), barely a cost at all.
It doesn’t bring up the fact/opinion divide, it just uses it.
It seems we understand ‘hedge phrase’ somewhat differently, but I certainly agree that adding phrases that convert what would otherwise be a statement about the world (e.g. “Chrome is the most etc.”) into a statement about my own thoughts, feelings or experiences (e.g., “I think Chrome is...” or “I find Chrome to be...” or “In my experience Chrome is...” or whatever) makes the statement seem less confrontational, and that the difference in statement length is negligible.
In my more pedantic youth, I entertained myself endlessly by playing this game when people tried to ask me for the time.
“Do you have the time?” “Yes.” ”Will you tell me the time?” “It depends.” ”On what?” “Whether you ask me.” (sigh) “All right, then, will you tell me the time?!?” ”As I say: it depends!”
It astonished me how difficult it was for people to forego polite indirection.
I don’t think they were failing to forego polite indirection so much as failing to discover via mindreading the secret phrasing which they needed to use in order to extract the time from you.
Whenever I encounter someone prefacing a statement with “this is just my subjective opinion,” or some variation on that, it immediately causes me to revise my opinion of them downwards.
I agree that it sounds lame. But couldn’t there be a variation that makes them look cool?
“While it could be argued that all such opinions are subjective, my personal opinion is definitely X.”
I think a simple “in my opinion” serves better. All opinions are subjective, otherwise they wouldn’t be opinions, and it comes across as passive and weasel-wordy.
There are variations that can improve on the basic “in my opinion” disclaimer, but they’re situation appropriate. For instance, you might use “In my objective and incontestable opinion,” which is clearly facetious, and signals a deliberate reaction to overly self effacing disclaimers, but it won’t earn you points in circles where self aggrandizing humor is frowned upon.
I’ve met people who get huffy about the suggestion that they preface their opinions with “in my opinion” or “I think that.” For a long time I had trouble explaining what good came of doing so; the best I’ve got so far is “it distinguishes you from the people who think their opinions are facts.” Does this make sense? Any suggestions for making it clearer?
Edit: I just found a couple more ways to explain this in my notes file. One is that “x is bad” invites the conversation “no it’s not!” “yes it is!” (because it’s a disagreement of fact) whereas “I think x is bad” invites the conversation “why do you think that?” (because it’s a disagreement of opinion). The second argument is more interesting. Another is that when you say “x is bad” as an absolute, you’re implying that anyone who likes it is wrong; you’re insulting their taste. When you say “I don’t like x” you’re merely disagreeing with their taste.
I haven’t yet figured out to do with people who actually do believe that their opinions or experiences represent objective truths.
Leave out the last sentence, and I would definitely respond to the second better than the first. Pointing out that one’s opinions are subjective is vacuous, it’s obvious enough that I’m inclined to think less of someone who bothers calling attention to it, and the “and therefore fairly meaningless” part makes it considerably worse. It’s way too self effacing, and triggers in me the kneejerk response “if it’s so meaningless, why bother bringing it up?”
Whenever I encounter someone prefacing a statement with “this is just my subjective opinion,” or some variation on that, it immediately causes me to revise my opinion of them downwards.
The examples you keep bringing up seem to be sledgehammer approaches to politeness. It’s better than sledgehammer rudeness, but it’s not well optimized for smoothing social interactions.
Why do you keep the hedge phrase “I think” in your improved version?
After all, “I think” is just as meaningless as the hedge phrases you remove: I already assumed that you think it, otherwise you wouldn’t have said it. So, if hedge phrases are bad, “Chrome is the most visually appealing...” would be even better.
Unless you agree that hedge phrases have some value, in which case this is much more of a “haggling over the price” sort of disagreement than it seemed at first.
I do agree that hedge phrases have some value. They have more or less use depending on the social circles you’re dealing with. Here, you could probably leave out the “I think” as implicit, but in many circles dropping it would be taken as abrasive and overprivileging of one’s opinion. Remember that there is no shortage of people to whom “other people don’t have to share your opinion” seems like a genuine insight.
I’m not taking issue with lionhearted’s general point that social signals that would seem fluffy in this community can be legitimately useful in many situations, but like many others in this thread, I question his grasp of what sort of signaling actually tends to be most effective.
An introductory phrase need not be a ‘hedge phrase’ in the sense of demoting the following statement—it can just serve to position it properly.
I find a good medium to be ‘I find’, or ‘It strikes me’, or ‘It occurs to me’, depending on context. These are clearly indications of subjectivity without denigrating subjectivity.
“I find Chrome to be the most visually appealing…” is not confrontational at all, and in terms of added length it’s 3 short words (‘I find’, and using ‘to be’ instead of ‘is’), barely a cost at all.
It doesn’t bring up the fact/opinion divide, it just uses it.
It seems we understand ‘hedge phrase’ somewhat differently, but I certainly agree that adding phrases that convert what would otherwise be a statement about the world (e.g. “Chrome is the most etc.”) into a statement about my own thoughts, feelings or experiences (e.g., “I think Chrome is...” or “I find Chrome to be...” or “In my experience Chrome is...” or whatever) makes the statement seem less confrontational, and that the difference in statement length is negligible.
“It would be great if you could pass the salt.”
“There is no objective criteria by which it could be ‘great’ if - ”
“I would appreciate it if you would pass the salt.”
“If you think so, then it’s probably true, although there are limits to introspection - ”
“Trust me.”
″ - but even granting that, that’s really a lame counterfactual scenario to raise - ”
“Salt motherfucker. Can you pass it?!”
“I can.”
(A short interval of time elapses. Salt is not passed.)
“Pass the salt!”
In my more pedantic youth, I entertained myself endlessly by playing this game when people tried to ask me for the time.
“Do you have the time?”
“Yes.”
”Will you tell me the time?”
“It depends.”
”On what?”
“Whether you ask me.”
(sigh) “All right, then, will you tell me the time?!?”
”As I say: it depends!”
It astonished me how difficult it was for people to forego polite indirection.
“What time is it?!”
“It’s five o’clock somewhere.”
I don’t think they were failing to forego polite indirection so much as failing to discover via mindreading the secret phrasing which they needed to use in order to extract the time from you.
I agree that it sounds lame. But couldn’t there be a variation that makes them look cool?
“While it could be argued that all such opinions are subjective, my personal opinion is definitely X.”
I think a simple “in my opinion” serves better. All opinions are subjective, otherwise they wouldn’t be opinions, and it comes across as passive and weasel-wordy.
There are variations that can improve on the basic “in my opinion” disclaimer, but they’re situation appropriate. For instance, you might use “In my objective and incontestable opinion,” which is clearly facetious, and signals a deliberate reaction to overly self effacing disclaimers, but it won’t earn you points in circles where self aggrandizing humor is frowned upon.
I’ve met people who get huffy about the suggestion that they preface their opinions with “in my opinion” or “I think that.” For a long time I had trouble explaining what good came of doing so; the best I’ve got so far is “it distinguishes you from the people who think their opinions are facts.” Does this make sense? Any suggestions for making it clearer?
Edit: I just found a couple more ways to explain this in my notes file. One is that “x is bad” invites the conversation “no it’s not!” “yes it is!” (because it’s a disagreement of fact) whereas “I think x is bad” invites the conversation “why do you think that?” (because it’s a disagreement of opinion). The second argument is more interesting. Another is that when you say “x is bad” as an absolute, you’re implying that anyone who likes it is wrong; you’re insulting their taste. When you say “I don’t like x” you’re merely disagreeing with their taste.
I haven’t yet figured out to do with people who actually do believe that their opinions or experiences represent objective truths.