I first ran into the concept of mitigated speech in a management class. The instructor was a non-mariner. The classes I took later were taught by retired deep-sea captains and they didn’t mention the concept. Mitigated Speech and Plane Crashes Command: “Turn thirty degrees right.” That’s the …

Thanks for explaining this – I thought you meant swearing when you mentioned it on the other thread. #4 has a sting in the tail, seems to me.

This seems to be related to the excessive use of the “passive voice” in our conversations and writing. I struggle with this and was hoping for a 12 step program to rid me of it once and for all. Seems I should have worked harder in English class when I had the chance. To hell with being mechanicall…

I have not noticed any excessive passivoicity in your writing on here.

HOLY JEEZUS FUCKING CHRIST! are you telling me I can’t simply order a mate or helmsman to alter course anymore? I need to “mitigate” my order? WTF is this sorry assed world coming to?

I thought I remember reading somewhere that use of passive wording like this in high risk situations leads to errors. I forget whether the article/study was about ships or planes. I understand using some of these types of phrasing in a situation where someone is mentoring or instructing, but in high…

That is not the point made in the article. The examples given are the first officer taking to the captain. And it cautions about the dangers of mitigated speech.

[image] c.captain: HOLY JEEZUS FUCKING CHRIST! are you telling me I can’t simply order a mate or helmsman to alter course anymore? I need to “mitigate” my order? WTF is this sorry assed world coming to? Mitigated speech is a linguistic term describing deferential or indirect speech inheren…

[image] c.captain: HOLY JEEZUS FUCKING CHRIST! are you telling me I can’t simply order a mate or helmsman to alter course anymore? I need to “mitigate” my order? WTF is this sorry assed world coming to? No, I imagine it is more often than not the helmsman to the mate (in your example) that…

This is also a good part of the reason we use such tools as anchor circles and the like. Sometimes it’s hard to tell for sure if the anchor is dragging or not. So firstly the mate might wait to call until he is 100% sure. Secondly, if the mate is not sure the message might be vague as the mate trie…

[image] Kennebec_Captain: This is also a good part of the reason we use such tools as anchor circles and the like. Fully agree. If there are “mile markers” it is much easier to maintain situational awareness.

Mitigated Speech

Professional Mariner Forum

Chief_Seadog December 29, 2017, 12:51pm 13

Fully agree. If there are “mile markers” it is much easier to maintain situational awareness.

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Mitigated Speech

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