Have you ever been in a situation when you're talking (or in general corresponding) with someone and you both agree to something. Then when the action is taken (or not) you find out you were actually talking about different things?
It's certainly happened to me, and I've seen it happen to other people as well. One reason is that we assume that the other party has the same background and/or knowledge that we do. This is an implicit assumption that sometimes we aren't even aware of. Sometimes, it's just a misunderstanding.
I remember once that my Dad called me from work on a saturday morning (he worked a lot of overtime). He asked me to buy some stuff at a store for a fishing trip later that day. I understood him to say two o'clock, when in fact he said twelve o'clock (in spanish it sounds very similar). I was still a kid at the time (some would say I still am, but I won't get into that), and saturday mornings are kid's heaven. So around noon, I said to myself, "I'd better get going, so I can buy that stuff way before Dad arrives". Well, it was to my great surprise that I saw Dad screaming at me from the station wagon as I was walking out of the store, 10 minutes later. "I told you twelve o'clock! What are you thinking? Can't you understand spanish!". I was momentarily stunned (Dad's more nervous bouts always gave me some of that feeling). "You said two o'clock," I stuttered back, frantically trying to recall that particular part of our phone call, not sure if I did indeed listen incorrectly. Well, it's safe to say I was not in my Dad's favor that afternoon.
Anecdote aside, the use of precision language is something that we all should practice. To do so, we should learn more vocabulary, so that we say precisely what we mean. We could also make sure that when we're speaking to another party, we are in fact talking about the same thing.
Now, it would be sort of rude to ask someone to explain what you've told them (especially if they're your boss, or the like). So in lieu of that, you may repeat what you're interlocutor is saying, trying to use synonyms instead of repeating verbatim (it also avoids you sounding like a parrot!). It may seem annoying to some persons, but if you can find out that you are both tuned to the same frequency, then it's well worth it (especially if the cost of not understanding is well more than getting your Dad angry, although on second thought, there may be few things that are worse than that).
So speak up, and when you do, remember: people don't listen to what you mean, they listen to what you say!
