I`m flying my plane, right? No, I am flying my plane.
In Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones I read about a study on how women add qualifiers to their statements. For example “‘I like this, don’t you?” Or “This is terrible, isn’t it?” The study showed that in their sentence structure women were often looking for reinforcement for their feelings and opinions. They didn’t just make statements and stand behind them- “This is beautiful.” “This is terrible.”
The other thing was that women often used words when speaking such as maybe, somehow, perhaps.
I’m thinking about this. Wondering if I do this. And noticing that I often do. It’s interesting to become aware of it, and to think about how my use of words changes when I take away those qualifiers. I can see how in some cases, speaking in definite statements could be clarifying, even empowering.
Of course there are times when I need to say Maybe I do, I don’t know, or I somehow became this or that, but there are times when weeding out my “I guesses” and my “Don’t you thinks?” could be useful.
