Long-winded people I’ve ever met

I’ve been accused of being too wordy in my written compositions, such as letters and e-mail correspondence, and I'll accept this as valid criticism.  

It must stem from my desire to be complete and not misunderstood which would be an occupational hazard in my profession.

If my wordiness has its origin in the work I do, it’s because I use written communication to advocate a client’s point of view.  Sometimes it may be a controversy or dispute so I must make sure the message I communicate on their behalf is loaded with convincing lines of reasoning and fully supported by authority and evidence.  It sometimes takes lots of words to do this successfully.

In any event, you can call me “Mr. Wordy” knowing you’re not the first to do so and you won’t hurt my feelings.

And I suppose the same could be true with my spoken words but that depends on what the conversation is and to whom I’m discussing something with.  While I take pride in being a good listener, it’s only natural that I’d like my turn of “having the mic” in an extended and healthy conversation.

Sometimes getting an equal share of talking time is no problem like when the person I’m talking to and I both yield to each other at natural breaking points so that our conversation sounds like a symphony performing a classical music masterpiece.  Other times, however, with a different person, our conversation music isn’t so smooth particularly when one of us “hogs the mic” in what ends up being a one-sided conversation.

“What is the sound of one hand clapping?” I may ask myself when getting the short end of equal time in a one-sided conversation being dominated by the other person and not me.

These long-winded and oftentimes full-of-hot-air “mic hogs” know who they are and you can usually spot them from a distance.  They are also of the same stock of those who are “selfie-prone” with their smartphone cameras and take great delight in uploading another selfie of themselves on Facebook to display right next to the hundreds of other selfies previously uploaded for their Facebook friends.

These folks speak their own language called “Me, me, and me!”

Another characteristic of these people is a common preface they frequently utter after blowing their hot air for what seems like eternity.  They typically do this when realizing what they’ve done and wanting to save face with their exhausted listener.  

And what is their prefatory statement? 

Those who say “To make a long story short . . .” are some of the most long-winded people I’ve ever met.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum