[stylist] [word choice & Robert's gratitude submission

[Robert Leslie Newman]

Hi you all 
RE: 2 things

#1 Interesting! This is an author's thought, one that you all should mall
over. You know how when you are describing an action of one of your
characters, you choose wording that you think will work, as in be understood
by the audience that you are writing for. And sometimes you get it right and
other times --- you are surprised that some of the folk who you think should
get it...don't. And so you have to stop and think and consider a surgical
rewrite of that problem sentence. Here is an example of that: In my
submission  for the gratitude prompt, I shared one of my THOUGHT PROVOKERS
(TP), "The Mentor." (I have gotten some good suggestions from this process,
too.! Thanks) But in regard to my topic here --- word choice ---- below is
the passage and sentence of my TP that got people puzzled by I didn't have
the character do something they expect I should have had the character do;
where I think I did have them do. (Interesting, a lesson for me.)

*Robert- The scene was Bree's report of she and Chelsea's mentoring
experience, wherein Bree describes what she learned from their mentee -
about aging, and specifically the older woman's wrinkles. The passage is
below:

*Passage- Turning to her partner, hand on hip Bree said, "I beg your pardon.
In all due respect to the dignity of Mrs. Johnson, she showed me the
wrinkles on her hands and then the loose and sagging skin of her forearm.

*Robert- My choice of words of "she showed me the." Interesting, Bree is
totally blind, and we on this list are also experiencing severe vision loss.
And what I wrote didn't work for several of us to understand that, when a
blind person might say, "showed me the" whatever, that it would imply having
either felt it with their fingers or listened to whatever to take in and
understand what was being shown? --- And so I'm sitting here smiling and
thinking that I may change it to read ."...she allowed me to touch  the
wrinkles on her hands and then the loose and sagging skin of her forearm..."

And yes, I am also aware that much of the sighted population, when thinking
of "showing" a blind person something. The sighted public tend to think that
it would not work nor even be sensitive to use the word "show" to a
non-seeing individual; the sighted person thinking that show is a visual
reference. And before I go into this whole aspect of politically correct or
misconception of blindness word choice thing, I'm going to stop for now.
Just interesting and as an author, important to choose your words. (Yet, I
may not change the wording, with the intent to educate the reader to the
fact that "showing" is the proper term, after all, showing is a
multi-sensory thing.) 

#2 The only blind people  I'm met who were into feeling faces are - A newly
blinded person, and not many of them. Or, blind men who were of a
personality type that most of us would consider to be "dirty old men." (You
know the type, the guys when taking a helpful sighted guide from a woman,
would use that opportunity to try and "accidently feel other parts of their
guide.)