So sorry...it's a disease | Life of an Architect

First let me begin by thanking all the people who have visited my blog and endured my horrific writing style.

Me: “Did I just say I had a writing style? Wow – I have a style”?

Everyone else: “Yes … and it’s terrible”.

I am well aware that my “writing style” is more of a “talking style” and I have been told before that I suffer from verbal diarrhea and that I talk too much and I even tell people that when you ask me what time it is I will tell you how to build a clock.

Whew!

To make matters worse, let’s not even get into my total disregard for proper grammar. How did you like that run on sentence in the last paragraph? It was amazing wasn’t it? Well, I hope you agree because there are plenty more where that came from. Actually, now that I look back at it, it wasn’t even a paragraph – it was one sentence. And did you see that sentence I just wrote? I just can’t stop…

So I am also pretty sure that I am making up my own form of grammar now but I am just going to continue rolling with it. Apparently, people with a background in journalism would call this my “voice”. I write like I talk (insert joke here). The grammar that I use has more to do with trying to instruct the reader on where to pause, what to emphasize, or what I might be thinking in my head – which is a dodgy area on the best of days.

The only real plus that I can hold up as defense is that when I write, my goal is to be conversational and casual. I frequently discover that my clients don’t speak “big A” architecture and if I am not paying attention, I am going to lose them during the course of our discussion. There are words that are unique to the architectural profession and unless you work in that world, you might not know them. Ever used the word juxtaposed before? I used it 7 times before lunch. How about axis mundi? These are ridiculous words but every architect I have ever met has used these words before because they have very specific meanings. To my thinking, if you just threw words like these out there and assume that they are common and everyone speaks “your” language, you’re kind of an ass.

Over the years, I have unintentionally started talking to people in a way to avoid creating these verbal disconnects, or at the very least to not expose the fact that they have no idea what I am talking about. By incorporating the meaning of a specific architectural word, when I use that specific architectural word, as part of the process of the discussion, the result is that I am now overly specific and incredibly wordy. (that last sentence had 3 commas – amazing really)

Me: Hello everyone, my name is Bob and I have a disease.

Everyone Else: Shut up.