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Great article! I love this: "I'm continually amazed by how much better people react if I remember to arbitrarily throw "I think" before I state an opinion. I m

• waterlesscloud 17y ago
  Yes, it does. I always feel silly adding it in, because of course what I'm saying is my opinion. What else would it be? But I say it when I'm talking to people who need it. I've always thought that the main reason for it is that most people are very easily threatened in their opinions, so without the "I Think", they can feel like they are being attacked. But it could be that most people simply haven't been trained to differentiate fact and opinion on their own, so they need clear markers. At least, I think that's possible.
  • hubb 17y ago
    it's rather that many nerds easily assume an authoritative tone when voicing their opinion. i think
    • kilian 17y ago
      That is true.
    • xenophanes 17y ago
      cause they thought about their opinion and have good reasons to believe it's correct. and they are open to debate. they aren't being closed minded. what they don't want or like is for you to say/think "that's just your opinion" and both not give a counter argument and also not accept they are right.
      • gizmo 17y ago
        I find that most people find disagreement of any kind uncomfortable. So whether you're open to discussion or whether you've considered your opinions carefully is immaterial.
        • xenophanes 17y ago
          Yes. I'm just saying why people do that. Some people don't irrationally hate disagreement and instead see it as a learning opportunity.
    • Quarrelsome 17y ago
      I think it is more that a lot of people believe that everyone speaks in truths. It's the reason why some people can listen to Fox News with a straight face. Fair and balanced yo.
  • Periodic 17y ago
    "I think" implies that it is just your opinion and that others may think differently. Omitting it implies certanty and fact. You may think that those two words have no meaning, but to many people they say a lot. Most people are not literal. Their words are loaded with additional layers of meaning. For example, "I think the world was created 6k years ago," is a very non-threatening statement. It's just an opinion and by stating that it's just your thought, you imply that it's okay that others think differently. If you had said, "The world was created 6k years ago," you are stating a fact and inviting disagreement. It is not about differentiating fact from opinion, but rather not understanding what implications you words have. "Sometimes what wasn't said is more important than what was said." The stereotypical geek might not understand that, preferring a literal interpretation of everything. Note: I caught myself using, "I think," three times when writing this comment.
    • waterlesscloud 17y ago
      But isn't that an indication that most people are in fact very literal? Isn't it far more indicative of layers of meaning when someone distinguishes between fact and opinion without literal markers?
    • gizmo 17y ago
      The thing is, though, that people expect the inclusion of "I think" even when what you're stating is _obviously_ an opinion. The statement "The world was created 6k years ago" could be a scientific/objective truth. So by adding "I think" people won't feel like a fool by disagreeing with you (otherwise they might be unknowingly disagreeing with a fact). On the other hand a statement like "Redheads are hot" is obviously an opinion. Prefacing that with "I think redheads are hot" sounds unnecessarily insecure to me, but I suspect most people would add the "I think" qualifier anyway. I don't think it makes sense that a statement like "tomatoes are gross" is more threatening than "I think tomatoes are gross", but it might very well be the case. On a tangent, I find that when people say something that I know to be (objectively) wrong, I tend to correct them by prefacing my opinion with "I think...", or "I heard that...", or "I read somewhere that...", and I always end my disagreement with a (tonal) question mark. Even when I make a statement or correct somebody, ending with a higher pitch (question mark style) works wonders to avoid offense.
  • ErrantX 17y ago
    It's probably because it is possible to pass on a statement of fact by speaking it too. To me personally not putting I think before my statements of opinion, as opposed to fact, seems weird. I think Firefly is the best Sci Fi show ever and Firefly is the best Sci Fi show ever Are 2 completely different statements :)
    • ryanpetrich 17y ago
      I find the second statement to be nonsensical because it is written like a fact, but can't be proven or disproven. Why do people speak like this?
      • jrockway 17y ago
        The word "ever" works like "I think" in that sentence. That's why the "I think" version sounds weird.
  • brettnak 17y ago
    Leaving out "I think" tends to make people think that you are stating a fact that you learned somewhere or somehow, and that it's a step above a "normal opinion"; if that makes any sense. The offense comes in the future as well when they discover you told them something wrong with out the "I think" prefix. Stating opinion as fact is a sure fire way to loose the trust of colleagues.
  • mattm 17y ago
    Taking Toastmasters, one thing tip they give about giving feedback to speakers is to preface your feedback with "I". There's a big difference between: "Your voice was too soft." and "I found your voice to be too soft." In the first statement you are speaking for everybody. But just because you had that insight, doesn't mean everyone thought that way. In fact you might be the only person who thought that and by stating it as universal, you could cause the speaker to think it was a major problem. This is what the article is addressing. When nerds give an opinion, they will say it as if it is a fact that everybody knows. It really turns me off wanting to discuss anymore with someone who does this as he believes his opinions are the opinions of everyone.
    • rbanffy 17y ago
      It's not logical to believe the given nerd's opinion is universal. Why would anyone, however nerdy, think so? When someone tells me my voice was too soft I immediately recognize it as a perception of that person and assign it a value based on that.
  • dkarl 17y ago
    Like so many other things, "I think" usually doesn't have the literal meaning "I think." It indicates a low-to-moderate level of conviction. Stating something without saying "I think" (or doing something else to soften your statement) indicates a high level of conviction. It implies that people without a similar level of conviction should defer to your opinion. That's what people find objectionable.
    • jamesbritt 17y ago
      " It implies that people without a similar level of conviction should defer to your opinion." Really? How so? I understand that an opinion expressed without qualifiers may indicate a strong belief, but I don't get the implied "defer your opinion" part. Perhaps this is something that some people infer, whether intended by the speaker or not? There are some people for whom every strongly voiced opinion is taken as a personal challenge, rather than being just one person's thoughts, typically offered without any supporting evidence. Hence flame wars and such. Maybe people need to be encouraged to assume every expression has an implied "In my opinion ... " unless there is something offered to back it up.
    • ErrantX 17y ago
      I beg to differ; obviously no hard proof to back this up but I expect that "I think" is used to express an opinion as much as it is to express uncertainty. Also uncertainty is presented in delivery and tone too; so distinguishing the two is relatively easy. When uncertain main emphasis is on the word "think". In an opinion (where you have conviction) the emphasis is on "I"
  • stonemetal 17y ago
    What else would it be? Fact, conjecture, a hypothetical that you don't currently believe, someone else's opinion, something you read on a bill board, demon possession, a marketing message, something you read in a book, something you learned via a diving method such as reading tea leaves... The list is actually quite long. I say "I believe" if I don't have any facts to back it up, I don't say "I believe" If I do.
  • uriel 17y ago
    > I've always thought that the main reason for it is that most people are very easily threatened in their opinions, so without the "I Think", they can feel like they are being attacked. Probably because they have not thought much about why they hold the opinions they have, and are afraid of any external input that might force them to question their world view.
• ShabbyDoo 17y ago
  Prefixing a statement with "I think" signals that you are open to alternate theories. Without this prefix, social rules like "silence implies agreement" kick in.
• TravisLS 17y ago
  I find this interesting because it's something that I've worked really hard to un-learn. I used to say "I think" before nearly every opinion, but I found it hard to have any of my opinions taken seriously. After all, why should anyone care what I think? These days, I'm much more inclined to say "What if..." or "We should also consider..." to preface an opinion, such that consideration is required before dismissing what I've said.
  • pavel_lishin 17y ago
    My stepfather told me to never preface a counter-argument with "yeah, but". He told me that other people hear it as "I didn't listen to what you said, but am talking anyway."
    • TravisLS 17y ago
      Probably the most useful piece of advice I've ever heard regarding this kind of discourse: A mediator friend of mine once told me to always attempt to briefly recap the other person's point before beginning a counter-argument. That way they know you heard what they said, and they have the opportunity to correct any inaccuracies before you get going.
      • mcantor 17y ago
        This simple exercise is more than just a trapping of mutualistic discourse. It actually forces you to think about their point, and leads to a greater understanding of what they are trying to say... which, in turn, allows you to waste less time by explaining a counterpoint to an argument that they didn't make. I try to make myself do this even when I'm not arguing with someone. If a task comes to me from my boss, I will do my best to rephrase it in my own words (not verbatim, unless it's something really simple) to make sure we're on the same page.
        • count 17y ago
          People who do this in every conversation annoy the everliving hell out of me. In a philosophical or rhetorical debate, it's an excellent strategy, but in day to day office conversations, ugh.
• evanrmurphy 17y ago
  It's funny to me that the article frames it this way. I understand the comment = opinion perspective now, but I grew up saying "I think" a lot for a different nerdy rationale: I considered my statements to be like logical propositions, and there's almost nothing you can be totally sure about, so why wouldn't you qualify? Otherwise you risk making false claims unnecessarily, which undermines the system we're building.
  • dkarl 17y ago
    I think the coding theorists here feel that it's an inefficient encoding if the most common case requires more syllables than an uncommon case ;-)
• xcombinator 17y ago
  In my experience people prefer the "I think" when you are unsure of what you say, and to be clear when you know what you are talking about. Odds are that a person that never ever say "I think" believes that his opinions are 100% right, witch nobody else will like(Mr Perfect) and a person that always says "I think" is insecure, weak, always depending of what other people think about me mentality. As the romans said: The true is in the middle.
• deleted 17y ago
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• EdwardCoffin 17y ago
  This reminds me of something Seymour Papert talked about when he was interviewed in "The Media Lab" by Stewart Brand, talking about an African conference on The New Math: "... At a certain point the Nigerian delegation stood up and walked out. It was quite dramatic -- they were dressed in beautiful African robes. Then the meeting broke up and I had this conversation with one of the people from the Nigerian delegation who went by. 'Why did you walk out, what's going on?' 'I can't talk to these Americans.' (Nobody thought of me as an American.) 'Why not?' 'Because they say what they mean.' "We're so brought up with the idea that communication fails when people don't say what they mean. The man explained, 'When two Americans have a conversation, each says what he thinks, and then there's a confrontation -- one's going to be right and the other one's going to be wrong. We don't do it like that. We sit around under the tree, and somebody says something, and somebody else does, and we talk and nobody has a position. It goes on for a long time, and maybe tomorrow, or eventually, everybody agrees on a position. Then everyone is right and there isn't anybody's point of view left out.'
  • billswift 17y ago
    And nothing ever gets done.
• uriel 17y ago
  For years I have been trying to learn not to say "I think" before every opinion I express. As Strunk&White point out: it is redundant verbiage, if you say something it is because it represents what you think, only when you are saying something you don't think (eg., what somebody else thinks) does it make sense to clarify. You would never say "I think that he thinks ...", which is the logical conclusion of the advice the article gives. Being humble and recognizing that you could be wrong is important, but there are better ways to express this than by preceding all you say with "I think". Sadly my eloquence is still lacking so I keep automatically resorting to adding "I think" and similar filler, but I try to catch myself and instead think (pun not intended ;) about what I'm actually saying and how can express it more clearly.