shall have added nothing

[keannu]

I don't understand the underlined, I can't never get what it means. Can someone be so kind to explain it to me ?

ex)How difficult it is to propose something for someone else to judge without affecting his judgement by the way we do it! If you say 'I think it is excellent', 'I think it is obscure', or something like that, you either persuade his imagination to agree with you or irritate it, in the opposite sense. It is better to say nothing, and then he can judge according to what it really is and according to the way in which other circumstances over which we have no control have affected the issue.
But at least we shall have added nothing, unless our silence also produces an effect, according to the interpretation he may feel like giving to it, or according to what he may guess from our gestures and expression, or tone of voice. It is so difficult to remove judgement from its natural basis.

[Bennevis]

But at least we shall have added nothing, unless our silence also produces an effect, according to the interpretation he may feel like giving to it, or according to what he may guess from our gestures and expression, or tone of voice. It is so difficult to remove judg(e)ment from its natural basis.

It means that if you say nothing you will not add anything verbally and that's a good thing. But... You may betray or convey what you wanted to say by gesturing in a certain way, and your body language can actually help your collocutor elucidate what is on your mind.

[keannu]

But at least we shall have added nothing, unless our silence also produces an effect, according to the interpretation he may feel like giving to it, or according to what he may guess from our gestures and expression, or tone of voice. It is so difficult to remove judg(e)ment from its natural basis.

It means that if you say nothing you will not add anything verbally and that's a good thing. But... You may betray or convey what you wanted to say by gesturing in a certain way, and your body language can actually help your collocutor elucidate what is on your mind.

I'm sorry you are using big words like collocutor, elucidate I can't understand well, Can you use easier ones? I think explanations should be easy...And are the two "according to" connected with "nothing" or "effect"?

[Bennevis]

I'm sorry you are using big words like collocutor, elucidate I can't understand well, Can you use easier ones? I think explanations should be easy...And are the two "according to" connected with "nothing" or "effect"?

You deal with such wordy texts that you have to ask yourself the question "Do I need this?" If you do, then you shouldn't be lazy - enrich your vocabulary. I write out 10-15 words/word combinations EVERY DAY in my vocabulary book. How are you going to be able to read abstruse texts if you are not prepared to do it? Again - enrich your vocabulary!

"...effect, according to the interpretation he may feel like giving to it, or according to what he may guess from our gestures and expression, or tone of voice."

[bhaisahab]

But at least we shall have added nothing, unless our silence also produces an effect, according to the interpretation he may feel like giving to it, or according to what he may guess from our gestures and expression, or tone of voice. It is so difficult to remove judg(e)ment from its natural basis.

It means that if you say nothing you will not add anything verbally and that's a good thing. But... You may betray or convey what you wanted to say by gesturing in a certain way, and your body language can actually help your collocutor elucidate what is on your mind.

"...and your body language can actually help your collocutor elucidate what is on your mind."
Why should your "collocutor" (an extremely obscure word, seldom, if ever, used in BrE) explain what you are or are not saying?

[Bennevis]

"...and your body language can actually help your collocutor elucidate what is on your mind."
Why should your "collocutor" (an extremely obscure word, seldom, if ever, used in BrE) explain what you are or are not saying?

Trust me, I didn't do it on purpose. It just popped up in my mind and I used it. I'm not saying I'm too well-read not to use words that naturally come up when I want to express myself, but I'm not the only person who just speaks his mind using words that are a part of his active vocabulary. English is such a rich language. Why should we suppress the desire to use words we, personally, are comfortable with. If our collocutor doesn't know them, it's his problem. Let him learn from us or from reading more.

[Bennevis]

Anyways, I'll take your advice and try to watch out for which words I'm going to use.

[BobK]

BN - like many Westerners, me - for example - uses words that other readers like us may not know, but whose meaning we may be able to guess - because many Big Words have' relations' in other Western languages (cognates). This is a good thing if it makes people use dictionaries and enrich their vocabulary. Unfortunately, it leaves half the world in the dark.

b