bzzzt

A picture is said to be worth a thousand words. That's why in OSPE's we are required to do lots of descriptions on a bunch of cells that look all the same and make a pathological diagnosis. BUT no, I am not going into some medical mumbo-jumbo discussion about this topic. What I want to say though, is about body language and non-verbal communication. (Yeah, sounds medical again, but no)

It is like given a picture of a person, facial expressions and body language can tell a lot. If I extrapolate that to a series of moving pictures, like a video, more information can be added. Then, add sound into the mix, and you get something REAL LIFE, with literally millions of bits of data.

This is interesting because a what may sound like a grunt is actually a series of sentences in a complex mixture of high-/low-pitched noise compressed into a short burst of sound. So a:

'Hmrph'

could actually mean:

'I waited for you for so long, but you didn't call or let me know that you will be running late and I started to get worried that something dreadful might have happened to you on your way here, but here you are not even with the slightest idea of how I worried I've been and how I felt, I wish you would be ever so thoughtful and to let me know about these things in the future.'

And what may look like a simple frown may actually be gestures and movements that lasts for only a few miliseconds and are so fast that our naked eyes miss out on the elaborate dance of Swan Lake that the person is performing. Yet, our brains can fully interpret that:

a raised eyebrow

actually means:

'You are not being serious, are you? I mean, you've actualy paid a ridiculus amount for something so miniscule, are you sure it is actually worth it? There has to be a really good reason to why you have done such a thing and I want to hear it now. It better be good. You're such a spendthrift, you know that? It's like money grows on trees for you, doesn't it?'

So why am I elaborating on this subject? This is the summary:

RS: X
Ken: A
RS: but X!
Ken: D, A.
RS: Y...
(10 mins later)
RS: X
Ken: C
RS: Z
Ken: C. A.
RS: XXX!!!
Ken: D. C.
(10 mins later)
RS: X :'(
Ken: D
RS: XXX!!!
Ken: B.
RS: Y
Ken: B!
RS: Y

Click on comment to find out more.

Isn't life easier with all these short ques?