"send the wrong message"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 10/15/2011 09:40 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Note especially that the "signal" or "message" in recent use is often
>merely a byproduct. Often it involves an unintended, even subliminal,
>quasi-Pavlovian interpretation:
>
>"Too many of today's films send a message to kids that ultraviolence is fun."
>
>Of course, an earlier generation would simply have used "tell." But
>given the choice (which seems barely to have existed forty-odd years
>ago), "tell" seems to me to imply something more apparent to any
>ordinary observer, whereas "send a message" implies something more
>oblique and perhaps less conscious.
>
>Or is it a distinction with no more than a stylistic difference?

There is a distinction to me.  "Tell" suggests something overt,
deliberate, while "send a message" (in these kinds of contexts)
suggests the possibility that the received meaning was not
consciously intended.

Joel


>JL
>
>On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 9:21 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: "send the wrong message"
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Oh, it's simplified enough--I just lack the antennae for reception. The
> > eyes say "yes" but the nose says "no".
> >
> >     VS-)
> >
> > On 10/14/2011 9:14 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >> At 10/14/2011 09:07 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> >>> OK, let me simplify it further--"receiving mixed signals" means being
> >>> unsure of intent, irrespectively of whether any actual indications,
> >>> tokens, facts, qualities, signs or symbols have been actually
> >>> transmitted. "Sending mixed signals" means that someone is "receiving
> >>> mixed signals" in that same sense. No signals--strictly a metaphor!
> >> If the recipient is unsure of *intent*, some information must have
> >> been received.  That is the "signals".  Is that simplified enough for you?
> >>
> >> Joel
> >
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