The words you use when making a statement are often more important than the statement itself.

This seems obvious, I could have told you this years ago. Yet I still make the mistake.

I recently made a post on social media. It was half-serious, and I knew it would get a mixed reaction. But even the expected criticism came down much harder than anticipated. What’s more, the critics that I expected to speak up were silent and those who spoke up came completely out of left field.

The reason, I’m certain, is my poor wording. More importantly, my choice of words.

The statement itself is irrelevant. What matters is that using the specific words that I did, it changed the focus of my statement entirely. Rather than calling to a broad generalization, my word choice specified a little too much, it lost context. My point hadn’t changed but due to my choice, the wording alienated some people.

What’s more surprising is that it took me a couple of days to realize my mistake. Seeing it now, of course it’s obvious why they reacted as they did.

Would I have received the same criticism had I worded it in broader terms? Perhaps, it’s not a subject everyone will all agree on. But I’m confident a better choice of words would have avoided some of the alienation I caused.

On a side note, I ended up having some important and meaningful discussions on the matter with many of those critics. So there was a silver lining.

That said, avoiding the issue entirely would have been preferable.

Choose your words wisely.