{"id":413,"date":"2025-05-02T14:48:52","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T20:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/?p=413"},"modified":"2025-05-03T09:19:17","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T15:19:17","slug":"courtesy-is-listening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/?p=413","title":{"rendered":"Courtesy is Listening, Listening is Courtesy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My family excelled in talking but not listening. What eluded us was this: courtesy is listening and listening is courtesy. Others explain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Saint Philip Neri<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Miracle:<\/strong> Someone <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/opinion\/what-we-need-in-pope-francis-successor-f8f0b58b?mod=Searchresults_pos1&amp;page=1\">asked<\/a> Saint Philip Neri, 16<sup>th<\/sup> century patron saint of joy in Florence, if he could perform a miracle and he replied yes: \u201cI just had a conversation with someone and didn\u2019t interrupt them. That\u2019ll do for today.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Joe Jones<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Worry<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WlFvkpDlPEk\">You talk too much<\/a>, a clear message from Joe Jones (1960).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>William Shakespeare<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Spendthrift:<\/strong> \u201cWhat a spendthrift is he of his tongue!\u201d &nbsp;says Antonio in his acid assessment of Gonzalos in Act II, Scene I of <em>The Tempest<\/em>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Thread:<\/strong> \u201cHe draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument\u201d declares Holoferness, spewing one of many insults against Don Adriano de Armado (who is not around to object) in Act V, scene 1 of <em>Love\u2019s Labours Lost<\/em>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Brevity:<\/strong> \u201cBrevity is the soul of wit\u201d, Polonius says in <em>Hamlet<\/em>, Act 2 Scene II.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>PG Wodehouse<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>No disrespect:<\/strong> Reggie Byng describes his step-mother thus in &nbsp;<em>Damsel in Distress<\/em>: \u201cBetween ourselves, laddie, and meaning no disrespect to the dear soul, when the mater is moved and begins to talk, she uses up most of the language.\u201d (Chapter 21.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Winston Churchill<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Slothful;<\/strong> Churchill required his ministers limit memos to a single page because \u201cit is slothful not to compress your thoughts.\u201d&nbsp; (Page 27, <em>The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz<\/em><strong>, <\/strong>by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Erik-Larson\/e\/B000AQ6KV2\/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1\">Erik Larson<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Benjamin Franklin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Trifling:<\/strong> Franklin lists \u201csilence\u201d as virtue No. 2 of 13 in his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/20203\/20203-h\/20203-h.htm\">autobiography<\/a>: \u201cSpeak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in <em>The Magic Flute<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Think:<\/strong> \u201cThe strong are different from the weak, they always think before they speak,\u201d the hero is admonished during his trials in <em>The Magic Flute.<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Discreet: <\/strong>\u201cAuch Verschwiegenheit (Also speech)?\u201d asks a priest seeking a character reference on Tamino in Act II: is he discreet in speech?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Jane Austen in<em> Pride and Prejudice<\/em> and Disraeli<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Rattler (1):<\/strong> The heroine Elizabeth Bennett of<em> Pride and Prejudice<\/em> rides in a stagecoach with mindless talkers and finds them \u201cas much delight as the rattle of the chaise\u201d (Chapter 27).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Rattler (2):<\/strong> More generally, a \u201crattle\u201d in mid-19<sup>th<\/sup> century London was an incessant talker, as Robert Blake notes in the biography<em> Disraeli.<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Not wise:<\/strong> In Chapter 45 of <em>Pride and Prejudice<\/em> an irate Caroline Bingley aims to undercut a rival but in the end hurts only herself, prompting Austen to observe that \u201cAngry people are not always wise.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal columnist<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Mississippi:<\/strong> \u201cOften people trying to tell you something use too many words, or jam in extraneous information, or forget their point as they take side trips. A genius, in conversation, will make many edifying digressions. Most people aren\u2019t geniuses. A story is the Mississippi River. Don\u2019t wander off and get caught in the tributaries. Stay on the river.\u201d (2 January 2025, <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em> column, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/opinion\/signposts-on-the-wisdom-trail-lincoln-david-foster-wallace-cs-lewis-advice-21334ef2?mod=hp_opin_pos_5#cxrecs_s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8212;  David Lawsky, May 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My family excelled in talking but not listening. What eluded us was this: courtesy is listening and listening is courtesy. Others explain: Saint Philip Neri Joe Jones William Shakespeare PG Wodehouse Winston Churchill Benjamin Franklin Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in The Magic Flute Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice and Disraeli Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/?p=413\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Courtesy is Listening, Listening is Courtesy<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":422,"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions\/422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsky.com\/techblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}