There is a style of communication called “mitigated speech”. I learned about it by watching a video by Malcolm Gladwell giving a speech about his book Outliers.

It comes about when somebody uses language that is designed to not offend, rather than to say things clearly.

One of the examples given, was of a co-pilot at Washington National Airport saying to the pilot something like, “Wow, there is sure a lot of ice coming down.”

The pilot, busy with pre-takeoff work load, replied, “yeah, it’s nasty out there.” and then proceeded with the checklist.

The co-pilot waited a little bit and asked, “I wonder if we should think about getting de-iced?”

The pilot didn’t do anything. A few minutes later, they were at take off speed, they rotated, came off the ground, and a few minutes later crashed into the Potomac River.

The co-pilot was using mitigated language. Instead of saying it clearly, such as, “I’m seeing ice build up on the wings. We should wait for de-icing”, he instead said things that did not make it sound like he was attempting to override the pilot’s authority.

Mitigated speech is also used when a person is afraid of the consequences of making a decision.

If you say, “I’m hungry.” You haven’t given a hint, you haven’t questioned anybody. You’ve “just” made a statement. In an environment which is trained to understand mitigated speech, this is a command to make dinner.

When somebody who is autistic, who is used to attempting clear communications, with a formalized response, “I’m hungry.” or “What’s for dinner?” are a simple statement or a simple question. They are not commands.

In the same way, if I hear those things, I am likely to acknowledge the statement and answer the question, I’m not going to take them as commands.

My wife used to use mitigated language, ALL, THE, TIME. It led to significant stress in our relationship.

I showed her the video, she asked me, “Why didn’t the pilot just do the de-icing?” I responded, “Why didn’t the co-pilot just say it clearly?”

She got it.

She has been working diligently to stop using mitigating speech. For her, that mitigating speech was pure protection. She could honestly say, “I never said that.” and be correct. If she said something and I read it correctly but was unhappy, she “never said it”. If I didn’t do it, I “wasn’t listening to her”.

It was amazingly safe and comfortable for her.

We are more balanced today. She’s put in the most effort. I listen for that mitigating speech and turn it into concrete speech with verification. Both of us put in an effort.

When It All Breaks.

A few years ago, my wife’s best friend realized that her husband had dementia. He went from the person in charge to having difficulties functioning. This hits me hard because of my mother and father.

My wife reached out, told her friend that she was there for her. My wife works constantly, but she was sending texts and messages to try to stay in touch. She offered help and had it turned down.

Today, my wife got a long text message from her friend. My wife was accused of being a horrible person, a horrible friend, a horrible mother. She was accused of not caring because she hadn’t brought dinners over. That she hadn’t stopped in.

It was mitigated speech that did this.

My wife was sending texts. Her friend wasn’t responding. In her friends “mitigation codebook,” it said, “not answering a series of text messages is a request for a visit.” Chapter IX, Section A, subsection g, paragraph 17. Right?

My wife didn’t have the same codebook, her codebook said, “not answering a text is an indication of being busy.”

She assumed her friend was just too busy to make time to text or message with her. And since she had made multiple offers to help with no response that wasn’t negative, she had done all she could and all her friend could accept.

I gave my wife some guidance on language. Sent her over to her friend’s house. It worked. My wife came back with things to do for her friend. Which she was happy to do.

Kids got tasked to help out the friend, little things, like my 18yo boy collecting and taking the garbage out to the curb for her. Cost my son 7.25 minutes, I timed him.

Dementia is horrible

My wife was barely back home from shopping, including picking up stuff for her friend, when her friend called with an Emergency.

My wife was off like a shot.

It appears that her friend’s husband had “taken a handful of sleeping pills”. Wife got there, evaluated, called 911.

Police, EMT, Rescue all rolled on the code. The husband survived. He did answer to in the affirmative for wanting to kill himself.

I’m a little upset that he didn’t get a 72hr hold, but he’s still at home. Friend is still dealing with him. But at least my wife knows what is expected of her. The kids know what is expected of them.

Conclusion

I’m proud of my wife. When she received that first message, she broke. She went defensive. But with very little coaching, she turned it around, recognized that it was a plea for help. And was there for her friend.

For me, I have to make the time to call my father, every Monday. He needs that contact. I want to support him. I do not want him to feel alone.

For the rest of you, take the time to say “I love you” to those that you love. You might lose them, you don’t want to ever regret the last thing you say to a loved one.

The home shop if full of neat things that you can make. My primary tools are a 5×13 South Bend Lathe, shipped to the Reynolds Machinery Company on December 31st, 1947 and a Bridgeport mill from the late 50s

The rule of thumb for any hobby is that you will spend more on tooling than you do on the primary machines.

My F5 camera body cost about $2000. I then proceeded to spend $3000+ dollars on lens, film scanner, color charts. Speed lights and so forth.

My lathe, mill, horizontal bandsaw, milling vise, three chucks, a handful of tooling cost me $1500. The delivery charge was another $200.

Since that time, I’ve spent much more than that on tooling. Quick Change tool post, quick change toolholders, indexable tooling, measuring equipment. Well, you get the idea.

The thing is, that as you go through the shop making things that accomplish real goals, there is a never ending need to make tools for making tools.

BlondiHacks is doing a series on a tool holding tool to help you grind bits. I want to make it.

I have an indexing head that I made that is about 80% complete. That includes casting all the parts that needed castings. I’ve got a shaper started, but I was having trouble casting a couple of parts and went on to other things.

One of the weird things that has happened, is that things that were not available 5 years ago are now being made and are available. This has led me in a long circle where I want to make a backing plate for an ER-40 collet chuck.

Before I spend anything on that project, I intend to make my “casinator”. I have drawings that are “good enough” to get started. But here’s the deal, I need to make a couple of counter bores.

These counter bores have to be to 0.0005 inches in size. If they are too big, the bearing will fall out. If they are too small, the bearing won’t go in. If they are just a little too small, the bearings might not function correctly. I have to get those bores nearly perfect.

The tool used for this is either the lathe, a pain for a rectangular piece of plate, or a boring head.

I actually have two boring heads. One for micro boring bars and one for large bores.

To use a boring head, you create a hole. It can be a through hole or a partial hole. The hole needs to be large enough for your boring head to fit.

The boring head is already positioned correctly because you have not moved it since you put the clearance hole in place.

You then adjust the position of the boring bar, You adjust the depth it will go. Then you start the mill to make a cut with an automatic down feed.

When the quill reaches the correct depth, it stops, and you can retract the boring head/boring bar. Carefully measure the size of the hole, adjust the boring bare, cut again.

This up and down motion will make the bore the correct diameter. You can hold very tight tolerances with quality boring heads. Which I have.

The problem, is the base of the hole doesn’t look good. As I write this, I realize it doesn’t matter. As long as the bearing seats fully, the surface finish doesn’t matter.

Now, the point of all of this, is that I wanted to upgrade to a “boring/facing head”.

This piece of magic allows you to advance the boring bar as it is rotating. Instead of cutting a larger and larger diameter bore, moving down through the material, you put the boring bar at the correct depth and cut outward, “facing” the bottom of the hole smooth.

I’m not going to pay north of $500 for one of these things. And I’m not willing to purchase unknown items from E-bay.