At the end of the day, language is a set of auditory approximations that allow us to share ideas that we have in our minds with others. As a philosopher, I inte

At the end of the day, language is a set of auditory approximations that allow us to share ideas that we have in our minds with others. As a philosopher, I interpret this as our inability share a complete thought, with all its intricacies and nuance, with another person. In many cases, this means it can be more accurate to imprecisely share a thought than to attempt to do so with precision - the imprecise thought doesn't paint the whole picture, but it leaves fewer unimportant details (at least in the opinion of the speaker) up for interpretation. This is exactly why the ancient Greeks viewed philosophy and rhetoric as two sides of the same coin. This is also why I feel most engineers need better written / verbal communication skills: "soft skills" are all about when to be verbose / concise, what tone or communication methods to use in what situation, and how to read your audience to know what level of communication they need to hear. The story from the article tells me a good deal about the interviewer and the interviewee: the interviewer has the presence of mind to understand his meaning was not getting through and how to keep that from happening in the future. The interviewee should have asked more clarifying questions if he did not understand. Misunderstanding is a two-way street; and at least in an interview, it can be helpful to see how someone reacts to a question they don't fully understand.