Talking while still deciding
People rarely announce decisions. They circle them out loud, and the circling has its own language.
Eight of those expressions. What is each one really doing?
Match each expression to the job it does in a conversation about a decision.
Four decisions, mid-air
A · Dani, on the shop
I’ve been considering closing it since February, and I keep not doing it. The lease runs to October. If I decide to stay past that, I’m committing to another three years, which at fifty-one is not nothing.
The maths says close. The maths has said close for a while. I don’t enjoy admitting that I’ve spent eleven years building something the maths does not support. So I avoid opening the spreadsheet, and then I feel bad about avoiding it, which takes up the evening the spreadsheet would have taken.
B · Marcos, on the unfinished degree
I’ve been meaning to finish it for nine years. Two modules. That’s all that’s left. I keep planning to enrol in the January intake and then not enrolling in the January intake.
My wife has offered to take the kids on Saturdays so I can study. She has offered this three times, which means it is not really an offer any more, it’s a question about me. I refuse to say out loud that I don’t want to do it, because I do want to do it. I just don’t want to start.
C · Beatriz, on the conversation
I need to tell her that what she said in June was not all right, and I’ve managed to not tell her for four months. I dread doing it. Every time we meet I plan to bring it up and then we have a nice afternoon and I decide not to spoil it.
The problem with postponing it is that the conversation gets bigger. In June it would have taken ten minutes. Now it needs an introduction.
D · Tomás, on the two flats
One is cheaper and forty minutes out. The other costs six hundred more a month and I could walk to work. I’ve tried weighing it up on paper and it comes out level, which I don’t believe, because I already know which one I want.
So I’ve ruled out the cheap one on grounds I’ve invented since Tuesday. I can’t afford to pretend that’s analysis. It’s a preference with a spreadsheet built around it, and at least admitting that is honest.
Seven statements. Decide which speaker each is true of. A speaker may be the answer more than once.
A Dani
B Marcos
C Beatriz
D Tomás
1. Admits that the delay has made the task itself harder than it was.
2. Recognises that a repeated offer has stopped being an offer.
3. Spends on the avoidance the time the task would have taken.
4. Accepts that the reasons were assembled after the conclusion.
5. Names a deadline that will decide the matter whether or not they do.
6. Separates wanting to do something from wanting to begin it.
7. Describes replacing a difficult moment with a pleasant one, repeatedly.
What the patterns were doing
Go back through the four extracts and read only the verb pairs: considering closing, decide to stay, enjoy admitting, avoid opening, meaning to finish, keep planning, offered to take, refuse to say, dread doing, plan to bring, tried weighing, afford to pretend.
Twelve pairs. Nobody stopped to work any of them out.
Say it, don’t read it. Two things happen in the mouth here.
to almost never sounds like to. In decided to stay it reduces to /tə/, and the three words run together as one: /dɪˈsaɪdɪd tə ˈsteɪ/. If you pronounce a full too, you have added a beat that native speakers do not hear as neutral.
-ing adds a syllable but not a stress. considering closing is five syllables and two beats: conSIDering CLOSing. Say it evenly and it stops sounding like English.
Four sentences have been removed from a fifth account. Put each one back where it belongs.
I agreed to take the role in September and I have regretted it since about the second week. [1] The work is fine. The work was never the problem.
What I did not expect was the meetings. [2] I have started arriving early simply to have forty minutes in which nobody can book me.
[3] My old manager offered to have a word with somebody, which I declined, because declining help is apparently something I enjoy doing.
So I have three options and I keep pretending there are two. [4]
Same speakers, your forms
One or two words per gap. Everything you need is in the four extracts.
Dani has been considering the shop since February, and avoids the spreadsheet. Marcos keeps planning and then does not enrol. His wife has offered the children on Saturdays. Beatriz dreads the conversation, and Tomás cannot afford that his reasons came first.
Six sentences drawn from the same four situations. One error each.
1. She has been considering to close the shop since February.
2. He keeps to plan the January intake and then not enrolling.
3. His wife offered taking the children on Saturdays.
4. She dreads to have the conversation.
5. He cannot afford pretending that it was analysis.
6. I have stopped to try to work out which it was. — he gave up trying
Take one of them over
Task card · Speaking · Pairs · 3 minutes each
Choose one of the four speakers. Tell their decision to your partner in the first person, as if it were yours.
Three minutes. Do not read the extract. Rebuild it, and add one detail the original did not give.
- Open with the option you are considering, and how long you have been considering it.
- Say what you keep doing instead, and what that costs you.
- Name one person whose expectation is in the room.
- Finish with the thing you have not said out loud yet — that is the detail you add.
Listener’s job. Two columns again, but this time write the pairs, not ticks: keep avoiding, decided to wait, and so on.
At the end, read the list back. Your partner will hear their own chunks in somebody else’s voice, which is the point.
The pairs that came back
Three questions about what you just heard yourself do.
1. When you rebuilt the extract, which pairs came out most easily?
2. In decided to wait, how should to sound?
3. How many beats are there in considering closing?
Twelve pairs, no rules
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. The four speakers produced twelve verb pairs without hesitating. Why?
2. What is coming next?
Next. The thirty verbs that carry most of this in real speech — sorted into three groups, and learned two words at a time.