An Analytic Code

Back when I was an Analytic zealot, I was taught one of their codes: Say what you mean and mean what you say. It's a well-worn penny of the tribe.

I've been daydreaming about it lately. First off, I like to break it down—'analyse' it, in the Briticism. Once in parts, say what you mean and mean what you say then have oppositional force and we can crank up the gristmill of compare-and-contrast.

Say what you mean has a nice ring of, Be straightforward (I'm rarely that, but I realize it works for some people), but it hits other notes too. Like, Out with it: Don't sit on your words; along the lines of, Don't brood: brandish your thoughts. Good advice—You might meditate for a few minutes or hours over the right way to say something, only to discover later in a chat with someone that the two of you were only synergistic seconds away from the formulation you were pining for. And then there's the idea that thoughts kept too long on their back burners before tasting dry out—It's nice to speak with heroic confidence in pitch-perfect diction, but that's what you risk in doing so. So: Issue things in drafts. (Draughts?) Think of this as culinary school.

But wait, there's more! Say what you mean is also sort of cutting, sort of soul cutting. As if to say, Don't sin by omitting (nicely in tension with Be straightforward): Say everything you're thinking, not just what you think we want to hear. Maybe something like, Don't edit too much—Say first, edit later. Or we'll edit. But in the other direction, say what you mean means, Don't beat around the bush if beating around the bush is your way of avoiding the bush, rather than your way of approaching it. Dance for the issue, not around it. And last but far from least—probably first in importance—there's the note of Don't lie to me or bullshit me, meaning or knowing one thing but saying another.

Let's switch over to mean what you say. The strongest note I hear is one of will: mean what you say (you'll do). Be faithful to your responsibilities both material and semantic: Deliver on your promises. But right there one chord away is, Mean what you say (you mean), which is what but Don't lie to me or bullshit me, again. Not to complain. Something that important bears repeating, and that cute round of redundancy has got to be one of the charms/conceits that makes the code so attractive (to us exacting types) in the first place.

But wait, there's more, again! Mean what you say sets up a head-to-head tension with say what you mean: Meaning what is said implies something like owning or standing behind what is said, and that implies something like caution. Pause. Nearly opposite to Out with it is Make sure you really endorse it. Beyond believing something close to it, make sure you believe it, the very thing you said—because someone might quote you, someone might make a decision on the basis of what you say, or someone might decide you don't know what the hell you're talking about even if you do.

So many treasures in a penny's gleam. Penny candy may have died, and pennies are not much offered for our thoughts anymore, and pennies themselves are on the way out, but I hope the Analytic code, Say what you mean and mean what you say, stays with us a while longer.