It's not what you say but how you say it
Meaning: Tone and delivery shape message impact more powerfully than words alone.
Origin: A common saying about tone and delivery with no traced first use. Communication trainers often connect it with the psychologist Albert Mehrabian's research in the 1960s on tone of voice and body language.
More proverbs about Communication
- Live by the sword, die by the sword — Violence begets violence; those who choose aggressive means should expect equally brutal…
- No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public — Mass audiences reward simplicity over substance, making mediocrity perpetually profitable.
- As you make your bed so you must lie on it. — Your choices about how you arrange your life will directly determine the comfort or disco…
- He who lies long in bed his estate feels it. — Laziness depletes wealth as surely as an idle body consumes resources without producing i…
- You would make me believe the moon is made of green cheese. — Absurd claims require absurd evidence; gullibility has limits even when persuasion is ski…
- The best lie is the worst. — A lie that succeeds too perfectly eventually collapses under its own elaborate contradict…
From our tongue twisters
- غاب الغيم وغابت غابة الغاب. (Ghāb al-ghaym wa ghābat ghābat al-ghāb.) — An unbroken sequence of 'gh' (غ) — a voiced uvular fricative that drills the back of the…
- Khadak Singh ke khadakne se khadakti hain khidkiyan, khidkiyon ke khadakne se khadakte hain Khadak Singh. — A 'kh/kh/kh' recursive loop — each clause triggers the other, like a rattling chain react…
- Chandu ke chacha ne Chandu ki chachi ko chandi ki chamach se chatni chatayi. — A 'ch' symphony from start to finish — Hindi's palatal affricate in every single word.