What do you make of this?

Not much sleep. Awake and disgusted about it. So I got up at 3:45, came down to make bread and read. Here's one thing I read.

“‘Words do not convey meanings; they call them forth.’ I speak out of the context of my experience, and you listen out of the context of yours, and that is why communication is difficult” (David O. McKay).

David O. McKay was not a linguistic authority, at least not to my knowledge, but what he says here is true. We know--one would hope--what we say, what we want to convey, but we cannot know what our hearer takes from it.

You say something. Your listener may know all the words you use, or he may not. Or he may get caught on a word and let his thoughts carom off of things already in his head, his experience, and take him far away; he stops listening; you're done. Besides, you can't make someone listen to you.

Even if he listens to every word, you cannot know if the words mean to him what they mean to you.

And the written word? I say the matter is similar, if not the same. In the first place, you can't make someone read what you have written. If he reads, will what you wrote mix with his experience and turn into something not quite like what you meant? If I had a nickel for every time that has happened, well, you know.

Many years ago I took a poem I had written to a workshop where a well-know poet held classes and gave us of her knowledge and experience. I thought I'd be reading my poem to the class, but she assigned another student to read it. Afterward, I said he didn't read it right; he didn't convey the meaning of it. Our visiting poet said, "All your reader has is what you put on paper. You can't expect him to know your thoughts unless you have put them down for him to read." Words to that effect.

Obviously, I never forgot that criticism. It has helped me in my own writing and was always part of what I taught my students at Boise State. Even so, well, no need to say again what I've already said.