If you’re an attorney and you need to prepare someone for testimony, you know: we’re a bunch of vague, meandering, imprecise assholes. We talk like a water balloon fight, sort of splashing the general vicinity of the answer. We don’t correct questions with inaccurate premises that don’t matter, we generalize and oversimplify and summarize and excerpt and use shorthand that only exists in our heads, and we do this all day every day in casual conversation. A huge amount of conversation goes on between the words and by implication. If I’m walking past your office and ask “did you eat?” I don’t need to vocalize that I mean did you eat lunch and if not would you like to go to lunch. You can respond “I have a meeting” and I will understand that you mean you understand and acknowledge that I’m asking you to lunch but you are unable to go. Huge parts of our conversations are like that.

Ken White