I’ve been consolidating all my verbs in SWAT, and in the process amalgamating a lot of verbs and processes. I have reduced the initial verb set to just 27 verbs, but they are pretty tight. Some of the amalgamation might be too heavy-handed. For example, I have consolidated two verbs for “reject a proposed deal” and “dismiss a threat” into a single verb “reject”. They take different flow paths based on the context, but I think that they should be a single verb. Am I right?
But I have wasted an hour now fretting over a simple question: should a rejection be qualified, and if so, should it be aura-qualified? That is, which of these three forms is most desirable:
reject
reject [quantifier], where quantifier indicates the degree of confidence in the rejection
reject [aura type] [quantifier], where the aura-type and the quantifier indicate the tone of the rejection. For example, an actor might use the truth-aura to indicate that the rejection is because he doesn’t trust the other actor. Or he might the good-aura to indicate that he is trying to be very polite. Or he might use to power-aura to indicate contempt for the other.
The third option gives the greatest richness to the expression, but is it useful? Would an actor want to use a rejection to communicate feeling? Why wouldn’t he just come out and use “express feelings” if he wants to communicate feeling?
The second option permits the actor to express how adamant the rejection is. If he wants to indicate that he isn’t sure, he’d use a small quantifier here.
But how would these three styles differ depending upon whether the rejection is to an offer or to a threat? In the case of the threat, it might be useful to use the third option so that the actor could communicate the tone of the rejection, as in “You? Threaten me? Hah!” (use of power) versus “I’m so sorry, but I simply cannot comply at this time.” (use of good) versus “I’d take your threat seriously if I didn’t know how much of a bluffer you are.) (use of truth).
But these would feel different if in reply to an offer.
Here’s a fourth option:
reject [aura type] This would merely associate a block tone to the rejection. It could be used to handle each of the three situations cited above. And it’s vague enough that it works equally well for both cases. Thus, the rejections would mean:
[Good]: “I’m so sorry, but I simply cannot go along with this just now. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
[Truth]: “I don’t trust you.”
[Power]: “I wouldn’t make a deal with a pipsqueak like you.” or “You? Threaten me? Hah!”
Yes, I like this fourth option. I’ll try it.