Trekkychick

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Dear Reader,

You may have recently heard that words only comprise 7% of communication. You must be worrying about what we do to communicate the other 93% of what we want to say. As a speech-language pathologist, or as I call myself, “Communication Expert,” I am delighted to have the opportunity to enlighten you regarding the percentages of each modality of communication that we use in a given conversation.

41% yawning.
Yawning may indicate fatigue. The average American gets less than seven hours of sleep per night, yet research indicates an ideal amount is closer to eight hours. Bats sleep twelve hours a night, and they have some of the sunniest personalities of anyone I’ve ever met. Christian Bale is very amicable. To sleep more like a bat, try hanging yourself upside down from a heavy overhead fan. Make sure that the fan is off first.

Yawning also sometimes communicates boredom. A well-placed deliberate yawn communicates the same message that the words “You are the most boring professor in the history of academic excellence and I want my money back for this class immediately” would also communicate, if one were not concerned about the consequences.

28% bodily noises.
These often communicate that one has eaten too much. For a comprehensive list of bodily noises and their specific communicative functions, please contact The Ex.

21% dancing and singing.
This type of communication works best if you’re in a musical, or in any movie that was produced before the 1960s. It can communicate happiness, pleasure, disappointment, sadness, fear, or psychosis.

7% words.
When we string these words together in a coherent manner, this is referred to as “talking.” Sometimes “talking” is important, such as when you need to communicate something urgent, such as “Don’t hang upside down from that ceiling fan yet, it’s still ON!!”

3% thumb-wrestling. (Can sometimes be interchanged with arm-wrestling.)
Nothing says “I’m tough!” quite like thumb-wrestling. A thumb-wrestler knows what he or she wants out of life and isn’t afraid to go for it with only one digit. Having been born with misshapen thumbs that resemble ping-pong paddles, I can personally attest to the silent but strong “I’m tough!” message that I’m sending each and every time I challenge an opponent to thumb-wrestling.

And there, Readers, are the most prominent forms of communication that you will witness, conveniently adding up to 100% of all communicative acts. I hope that this resolves some of your questions. If any questions remain, please ask me, and I will answer your questions through the highly useful communicative acts of yawning, dancing, and thumb-wrestling. I”m sure you’ll get my drift loud and clear.

–Troi out