What you say/What I hear

[Andy]

What you say: "For all professional MBA students this business stats final is going to be a take-home exam."
What I hear: "You can stop listening now, go play on the internet"

What you say: "We're going to work out the proof, but just so that you know you can trust Excel"
What I hear: "Excel works, but I don't want to just tell you to use it all the time so that I feel better about my teaching.  You can stop paying attention for the next couple of minutes"

[erika]

What you say: "Sometimes I like to say things just to stir the pot. Just to make people think, man."
What I hear: "I'm completely uncomfortable with my own thought processes and I hate that you're comfortable with yours. So I'm gonna go ahead and say whatever I can to evoke some sort of angry response. Because it makes me feel better to see you squirm."

[Steve of Bloomington]

What you say: I hope you've been well.
What I hear: In the next sentence I'm either going to complain or ask you to do something.

[yesno]

say:  "How do we reconcile these cases?"
hear: "These cases flatly contradict each other and the legal system is a sham."

say: "If you have time, could you..."
hear: "You are required to do the following:"

[Nicksy]

say: "You'll never be eclectic unless you listen to AC/DC"
hear: "I have the rare ability to make low-brow high-brow"

me: stink eye

[Steve of Bloomington]

What you say:  Hey buddy, we are a team.
What I hear:  I can't do my job, but you can, so....

[senorcorazon]

you: "I want us to go viral with the brand"
me: "I have no idea what I'm doing and am hoping you can nod in approval and then do the actual work to do whatever it is I'm talking about"

[Jonathan Steven]

What you (job recruiter) say: "I wont waste your time"
What I hear : "I'm quite desperate to unload the worst jobs available and as soon as you call me back I will begin to waste your time for however long you can stand it"

[Denim Gremlin]

what you say:

Natural Language Processing?  That is the field in which I work. What would you like to know, Trembling Eagle?

no, I was thinking of Neuro-Linguistic Programming

From the very little I know of it, it's nonsense.

It is nonsense.

 This jackass, meathead salesman at my office was going on to me about Neuro-Linguistic Programming the other day (incorrectly explaining it, it goes without saying). It's clear that he attributes way too much of his success in his current position to his perceived skill at Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and not nearly enough to the fact that his dad is tight with the CEO of the company by an amazing coincidence. He's like a Wurster cahracter made flesh.

If you're going to toss NLP in the rubbish bin I guess you'll have to toss in the rest of social psychology.
The hell with Chomsky too I guess.

Here's a good summary (in my opinion) of the controversy over NLP by someone who feels it is bunk. I read this guy regularly; he has a strong skeptical point of view regarding pseudoscience and woo. He's a neurologist at Yale and runs the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast.

http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=228

I first came across the term NLP when I heard about Derren Brown, the English mentalist who implied for a long time that he used the techniques in many of his tricks (he's since backed off, partially because NLP is so controversial and partially because it became clear he could achieve many of the same affects through traditional magic).

The guy in that article is attacking NLP as a therapeutic discipline, which is fine, my understanding of it is more of observational modeling of human behavior. The map can never be the territory as they say in NLP, if there are better more accurate models being developed let's have them.   

 What I hear: "Man we learned about the coolest thing in Pysch today, my professor is the man. hey want to go to the dining hall?

[Fido]

What you say: I'm not gonna lie to you...

What I hear: Sometimes I lie, but I'm not doing it this time. Not exactly, anyway.

[daveB from Oakland]

What I say: Madonna is fucking terrible.

What Madonna-defenders always reply: You have to admit though, she's a great businesswoman!

What I hear: Madonna is fucking terrible.

[Steve of Bloomington]

70s-80s edition:

What you say: The light show was great
What I hear: the band sucked

[pinky]

What I say:  I am getting another job because I hate this job and this company
What they hear: If you just give me a 2% pay rise and a new title I will shut up so you can go back to flirting with the 17 year old receptionist

[andrew in philadelphia]

what she says: i need your help with something for a second, honey.

what i hears: you're tall - i need you to do this chore for me.

[Jonathan Steven]

What you say: "Don't take what [employee x] has to say so personally and don't be offended, you just have to get used to him.
What I hear : "[Employee x] is a grade A jerk, and since none of us will stand up to him or try to fix our working environment for the better, it is now your problem and you must make an extra personal effort to avoid confrontation.