As communication specialists, my colleagues and I will get caught up with words and punctuation quite often. Which word should we use here? Should that be a dash or an ellipsis?
But as humans, we are constantly communicating nonverbally and often without even thinking about it.
Now there are specialists out there who can tell you what crossing your legs or rubbing your nose means, but I am more interested nonverbal cues a bit higher up – specifically eye contact.
I’ve run a little experiment several mornings while trying to make a left-hand turn onto a busy street during morning rush hour. Wearing my sunglasses, car after car will pass me by. But if I take the glasses off and make direct eye contact with the driver of the car about to pass me, I have a pretty good chance of someone letting me. Though I have caught a few cold drivers notice my eye contact and veer away quickly to pretend they didn’t see me.
Clearly I’ve mastered the exclamation point of eye contact. Now for that elusive dash/ellipsis gradient …
-- Alicia
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