THE AMBIGUITY FILTER

by Jim Freund

© 2023

             Picture this situation that I recently encountered. I’m heading east in the left lane of a two-lane NYC street. When I come to the next avenue, there’s a choice of going straight ahead (east) across the avenue, or turning right to proceed (south) down the avenue. I want to make a right turn that will take me (south) down the avenue.

             There’s a traffic sign near the corner that reads: “Right Turn From Right Lane Only.” This presents the issue of whether I would be violating the sign’s instruction if I were to make my right turn from the left lane.

             Here was my analysis. Did the sign mean that only someone in the right lane could make a right turn, in which case I would be out of luck? Or could the sign’s message be limited to instructing only those drivers who were already in the right lane – telling them that they could only make a right turn here – in effect, barring them from proceeding straight ahead on the same street across the avenue?

             I quickly, realized that the language of the sign was ambiguous, since either interpretation was logical. Not only that – the sign’s language might have been intended to pick up both of the commands.

             Well, I only had a few seconds to act before the light changed, and I wimped out – deciding not to take any chances turning right from the left lane. I proceeded straight ahead, relishing my impunity although having deviated from my preferred course.

             As I reflected on this later, I asked myself whether there was some way the sign could have been simply altered to make clear what it meant. For instance, if an “s” were added to “turn” (making it “Right Turns from Right Lane Only”) this would strengthen the interpretation that it forbids those of us in the left lane, from making a right turn – although a lesser ambiguity still exists for someone in the right lane, who is left to wonder if he can proceed directly ahead.

             If the intention were to limit right turns to those in the right lane, the sign should have read, “No right turn except from right lane.” If it were meant to apply only to those already in the right lane, it should have read “Cars in right lane must turn right.” And if both meanings were to be conveyed, then this language would make it clear: “Right lane must turn right; other lanes cannot turn right.”

             Well, the little incident got me thinking about the role ambiguity plays in our lives, which called to mind an article I’d written ten years ago (“The Ambiguity Filter”) that directly addressed the issue. After re-reading the piece, I decided it had enough continuing relevance to become (with minor changes) a blog essay, and that’s what those of  you who have any interest in the subject are about to read.

The Significance of Clarity

             In the contest for the 2012 presidential election, President Obama was soundly criticized for his remark, “You didn’t build that.” The Republicans jumped on this, quoting small business owners who took umbrage at it – they had indeed worked hard to build their businesses. But, truth be told, this wasn’t what Obama was saying. Here’s the full quote: “Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” But you didn’t hear any Republicans or small business owners mention anything about paying for their own roads and bridges.

            This kind of thing – and the many other examples I could cite – got me thinking about some of the stuff that comes out of the mouths of us non-politicians, often spontaneously, in the broader context of our social and business lives. Unfortunately, we’re not always as careful as we might be. When what we say is ambiguous or otherwise unclear, listeners draw unintended inferences that we never meant to suggest – inferences that undermine our message and (especially in a business setting) can prove damaging to our interests. 


            In Obama’s “build” remark, the word “that” – which he meant to apply to “roads and bridges” – was sufficiently ambiguous (when isolated from the context by his political opponents) to create the harmful inference that he was denigrating the important constituency of small business owners.

             To alleviate such problems, I’m recommending the use of what I like to call the “Ambiguity Filter”. It’s a tool we all need to have, especially when we’re speaking spontaneously, to make sure the listener understands exactly what we mean – not the listeners’ own version of it, which unfortunately has been made possible by some loose verbiage on our part.

             What I’ll be discussing is equally applicable to email, to texting, to twitter, to Facebook – we definitely need a comparable vetting process for instant electronics communications. But I’ll be directing my remarks at what I know best – the spoken word, in person or over the phone – and you can make the necessary conversion to those on-the-run print categories. And along the way, I’ll be discussing two other categories of real time interactions that raise similar issues: actions (without words) that convey a thought, and the failure to speak up (when we really should).

             As a lawyer, I considered clarity a dominant attribute of effective legal writing. Accuracy and precision were the keynotes – ridding the language of ambiguity and half-truths. Each word, phrase and sentence had to be unmistakable in meaning and not reasonably susceptible to another interpretation.

            We don’t intend a thought, written or oral, to convey ambiguity, but language is sometimes imprecise to adequately convey the intended nuance. As a consequence, even today when I write anything of substance, after I get it all down in good form, I go over the finished product one more time with a view to its clarity – pretending for the exercise that I’m the relatively uninformed reader rather than the know-it-all drafter.

            By the way, in this quest for written clarity, the lowly comma and the inconsequential parenthesis can be significant allies. For instance, compare the meaning of the two following sentences: “The defendants say the plaintiffs breached the contract,” and “The defendants, say the plaintiffs, breached the contract.” Here, the determination of who’s accusing whom very much depends on the punctuation.

            But let’s turn now to the spoken word, where ambiguity is much more prevalent and often leads to your being misunderstood. For instance, I recall once, after the wedding service of a male friend, going up to my friend’s secretary (whom I knew) and saying, “He did well!” She was quick to agree: “Yes, Carol is a lovely woman.” For a moment, her reply seemed odd to me. Then I realized that she had interpreted my remark (a pleasantry geared to my friend’s dexterity in placing the ring on his bride’s finger and not tripping on his way down the aisle) as an evaluation of his mate-selection process.

Inferences Created by Ambiguity

            Let’s face it, we’re not always careful to use words (or perform actions conveying a message) that are capable of only a single meaning. Then, too, we often fail to take into account the listener’s frame of reference, which may differ from our own and can affect the listener’s perception of what’s being said or shape the inferences drawn.

            Let’s examine a snatch of dialogue between an insecure woman and her conceited boyfriend.

            “You’re terrific,” says the woman.

            The boyfriend replies, “The feeling is mutual.”

            Now, the normal reading of the boyfriend’s response is that he’s returning the compliment to the woman – that the feeling mutually shared is the feeling that the other is terrific. (Assuming he meant this, he could easily have said, “I think you’re terrific, too,” and no question would arise.)

            But the woman – feeling insecure, recognizing the boyfriend’s large ego – wonders whether all he was doing was agreeing with her – i.e., that the feeling mutually shared is that he is terrific. He may not have intended this reading, or even considered his offhand phrase capable of it; and she might not have interpreted it that way initially – only later on, in the privacy of her parlor, when she’s wondering why their romance isn’t progressing as smoothly as expected.

            Actions that convey a thought can raise similar issues. A thumbs-down gesture indicates disapproval, just as strongly as any choice of words; drumming your fingers on the table may well indicate impatience; and so on.

            The problem occurs when the actions aren’t clear but rather are ambiguous – capable of being misunderstood in a way you didn’t intend. This happened to me in that chat I had with my friend’s secretary at his wedding. I had to make a certain telephone call at precisely 4 p.m., so at one point in our conversation I glanced down at my watch to see how much time I had left. Looking up, I could see immediately that she had misinterpreted my action – that she read it as indicating my impatience with our dialogue. Before I could protest, she made a graceful little excuse, releasing me to move on to the other guests.

            I was chagrined that my innocent but unexplained action had permitted an unintended inference to be drawn. It would have been simple enough to mention the upcoming call. And if I’d had my Ambiguity Filter in place – programmed to evaluate gestures as well as words, as it should be – that’s just what I would have done.

            Inferences are central to this problem. For purposes of analysis, let’s take the possible inferences that can be drawn from a particular statement or act, and grade them from one to ten – with ten being an almost irresistible inference, while one is an extremely remote possibility. Now, let’s imagine two couples seated at a funeral service for a departed friend.

            As the minister eulogizes the deceased, the wife of the first couple begins to cry softly. There’s a strong inference here – virtually a ten – that she’s crying out of grief for her departed friend. In this kind of situation, not only is the observer entitled to draw the inference, but he could be subject to criticism for not drawing it. (So, for instance, if the husband of this couple were to lean over to his wife and ask blandly, “Why are you crying?”, it might appear quite unfeeling on his part.)

            At the same moment in the service, the wife of the second couple is smiling. Her husband looks over at her, considers her expression odd under the circumstances, and then remembers a rather funny joke he told her the night before.

            Now, it’s possible that this is why she’s smiling, although there certainly could be other reasons (such as a warm memory of a good time spent with the deceased, or something entirely unrelated to either the present circumstances or the night before). For the husband to draw the low-level inference – about a two on the scale, I’d say – that his stale joke of 12 hours ago has caused her present smile is unwise and can backfire.

            Suppose he nudges her and says, “That was a good one I cracked last night, wasn’t it?” His wife might be quite upset that he’s thinking about his own joke rather than mourning their departed friend. Actually, it may even be worse if the husband draws that inference but says nothing. Now he has a distorted mental picture of his wife as someone who refuses to get serious at funerals, whose mind is on trivial irrelevancies – which in all likelihood isn’t the case at all.

            With inferences at the bottom part of the scale, where so many other alternatives are possible, jumping to that first conclusion is not recommended. But the fact is that people do this. The lesson to absorb, if you’re the person who’s uttering the words or making the movement, is the need to use the Ambiguity Filter to recognize the potential problem and nip it in the bud.

            Speaking of inferences, here’s an amusing vignette which appeared in the “Metropolitan Diary” column of The New York Times years ago. The narrator had observed a sportily-dressed man standing in one of those tiny squares of earth that house a single tree on New York City streets, swinging the head of a golf club into the brown dirt. He put the club back into his golf bag, and then proceeded to rub each club in his bag with dirt. Finally, he dragged the creamy white bag through the same dirt, slung it over his shoulder and disappeared around the corner.

            The narrator figured that this unusual behavior was due to one of two possible causes: either to convince tomorrow’s golfing companions that he was indeed an experienced golfer (not some novice with a new bag and clubs), or that he was about to golf with the person who had given him the bag and clubs as a gift, and didn’t want the giver to know that he’d never tried them.

            When the narrator told the story to two ladies in his office, however, they both drew a completely different inference – that the man, an out-of-towner, left home for the weekend, ostensibly to play golf, with a new set of clubs given to him by his wife. . . . See what we’re up against?

Failing to Speak

            A related point in this regard is that failing to speak up when you might have been expected to do so can raise similar issues of ambiguity and mistaken inferences. Here, however, the Ambiguity Filter is called upon to serve an affirmative purpose – eliciting from your mouth those words that are necessary under the circumstances to clear things up.

            So, for instance, if someone in the group speaks ill of your absent friend, your failure to state a contrary view might be viewed as tacit assent on your part. If your teenage son says that he’s giving eleven kids a lift in the family car to the senior prom, your silence. . . . Well, you get the picture.

            This comes up often in negotiating. For instance, let’s say a buyer is making a consciously lowball bid on some property you’re selling. He’s anticipating a vigorous negative reaction from you. If you don’t react that way, however – and many people schooled in the so-called “cooperative bargaining” approach to negotiation are reluctant to take issue directly in such a case – he may infer that his chintzy price didn’t strike you as so far out of line. This will adversely affect the way he bargains and how he reacts to your moves going forward.

            I’m a strong believer in characterizing proposals you receive from the other side, in order to reduce their expectations and set the stage for your counterproposal. This is true even if, for example, the buyer’s opening offer isn’t preposterous. There’s always something negative you can find to say about even the most forthcoming proposal!

            Another place this comes up in negotiations is when you’re the target of a commercial threat that carries real weight – one that the maker is capable of implementing and, for all you know, intends to carry out. Some people favor ignoring such a threat, but this strikes me as dangerous. Your lack of response could be misinterpreted by the maker as fear, suggesting that his threat has struck a nerve and achieved the intimidation he sought. On the other hand, I don’t encourage the common response of a counter threat, which escalates the confrontation in a dangerous way. The original maker is now tempted to up the ante, and who knows where it all will end?

            When a threat is overt, I favor a two-part response. First, I always reply to the threat; I don’t just let it hang there. Take the case where, in a commercial dispute, the other side says, in effect, “Either agree to our terms or we’ll sue you.” Now, you can’t stop someone from suing; but since the implication of “we’ll sue” is “we’ll sue and win,” the way to handle this threat is to assure the maker that he’ll end up being clobbered in court (even if the outcome of the case isn’t quite so clear). Don’t let him infer from your silence that you’re cowed by his litigation threat – a mistake that may blind him from seeing the need to compromise his position.

            Then, after countering the threat, I like to move things to a more practical plane by saying something like, “We could discuss the merits of a lawsuit all day. But wouldn’t it be more constructive to focus on whether there’s some way to resolve our differences?”

Filtering Out Ambiguity

            So, how should we go about solving the problem of being misunderstood? First, we need to work at maximizing the kind of word usage, emphasis, and communicative conduct so as to make our meaning absolutely clear. For example, try to use short, declarative sentences that avoid an ambiguous penumbra by making a single point, thus passing more readily through the Ambiguity Filter. I concede, however, that this may be easier said than done. The concepts we deal with, and the speed required to express the thought or act, don’t always lend themselves to simplification. And it’s especially difficult for those of us (like yours truly) who advocate distinguishing among various shades of gray.

            To make sure that what you’re saying is clearly understood, try to put yourself in the position of your listener. Avoid gibberish or dazzle that your listener is unlikely to comprehend. If a proposition is complex, try to state it in several different ways to maximize understanding. If you suspect he’s still lost, then ask him about it.

            Much depends on your ability to tell when the listener doesn’t understand you. A quizzical or vacant look on his face is an obvious clue. Even if he’s nodding in concurrence, don’t assume he’s on board. Be alert to anything odd in the listener’s response; if it’s not what you would have expected, re-examine what you’ve said for possible ambiguity (as I did at the wedding).

            And, need I say, when you’re on the other side of the conversation, don’t jump to conclusions. Recognize that words can have varied meanings, that different inferences are possible. Don’t assume that the reading you’re giving the speaker’s statement or conduct is the only correct one. If the matter is important, try to clarify your interpretation by further probing.

Some Final Thoughts on Ambiguity

            Let me leave you with two examples and a quote, all illustrating the need for an Ambiguity Filter.

            Remember, every situation you’re in is unique and has distinct features. You can’t use a single approach for all possibilities – flexibility is key. Otherwise you may suffer the fate of Chevrolet when it launched its Nova model in the Mexican market in the early 1960s. Only after months of terrible sales did someone in Detroit remember that “ no va” means “no go” in Spanish.

            Precision in phrasing concepts can be critical; its absence can provoke unintended reactions from the other side. So, for example, toward the end of World War II, when the Allies demanded Japan’s surrender, the Japanese government announced that it was withholding immediate comment on the Allied ultimatum, pending deliberations by the Imperial government. Unfortunately, however, the official Japanese government news agency translated the Japanese expression for “withholding comment” into English as “deliberately ignore.” Several scholars have suggested that, had the ultimatum not been so decisively rejected, President Truman might never have authorized the atom bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

            Finally, whenever I used to get a little cocky about my own communication skills, one glance at a small plaque that adorned a shelf in my office was enough to snap me back to reality. The plaque reads as follows:

            I KNOW YOU BELIEVE YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU THINK I SAID, BUT I AM NOT SURE YOU REALIZE THAT WHAT YOU HEARD IS NOT WHAT I MEANT.