THE CODE ISSUE 26
Duda Owner IONOS • August 4, 2015
Here is another one of my favorite quotes from the special double issue of Bloomberg Businessweek on computer coding. This one poignantly reminds us that reliable, accurate coding prevents the painful interruption of personal and family time (Paul Ford, “The Code Issue”, 6/15/15–6/28/15, p. 94):
“ Relentless testing is one way to keep an eye on yourself and to make sure the other person’s bugs and your bugs don’t find each other one wintry night when everyone is home by the fireplace and crash the server right before Christmas, setting up all kinds of automated alarms and forcing programmers into terrible apology loops with deeply annoyed spouses. ”

We explore the overuse or inappropriate use of the words "honest," "honesty," and "honestly." Much of the overuse or inappropriate use of these words is in contexts that intrinsically message the audience that the speaker is not trustworthy. I call the overuse or inappropriate use of these words in this context HONESTY VALIDATORS because the speaker believes they validate the truth being spoken. We need a solution to this problem. My solution is to replace these honesty validators with CLARITY VALIDATORS. Instead of trying to be honest, try to be clear. Replacing "honest," "honesty," and "honestly," with "clear," "clarity," and "clearly," produces significantly more benefit to the speaker and to the audience.










