Quote of the Week...from Bilbo Baggins

 I don't know half of you as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

    --- Bilbo Baggins

This isn't the first time I've quoted J.R.R. Tolkien's likable fantasy fiction character Bilbo Baggins, the prominent protagonist in the novel The Hobbit and more peripheral in the later Lord of the Rings trilogy. On March 27, 2020 I used a quote of his from The Hobbit about people who think they know more about my best interests than I do...click HERE to read it.  Today's Bilbo quote comes from the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first Rings installment.  He is in the Shire, homeland of the diminutive hobbit folk, giving a speech during his birthday celebration.  Bilbo, like me about people in general, has mixed feelings about his fellow hobbits, and decided to play a little joke on them (actually he plays a bigger one a few seconds later) by manipulating words to sound critical when, for all practical purposes, they are nearly meaningless.  And I'm referring to the second part of the above quote.  The cheering crowd, feeling happy and complimented from the quote's first part, suddenly becomes mute and confused from the second. It sounds unduly negative, doesn't it?  I bring it up not only because it's a kind of linguistic riddle to unwind, but because it shows that how one expresses a thought is just as important as its meaning, and that how it is received is an integral part of the act of communication.  Somebody once said, "The meaning of a communication is the response you get"...it couldn't be more true here.  Just remember, when all the encoded sub-messages come out from different candidates in the upcoming '24 elections, that from their perspective it isn't the content of their own speeches, including that content's level of veracity, that counts for them, but rather the impact their expressed words have on the target groups they are trying engender the desired emotions among (like fear and anger) to get them running to the polls on their behalf.  And if you're thinking I'm referring to one just side of the political spectrum, you're sadly mistaken...