THE TOOLKIT
Tingents

Tangents occur when the discussion goes off topic. Tingents have a similar impact; however, they tend to be shorter and more common. They appear in the form of clauses that contain extra words and phrases that qualify the message. “He’s long-winded” or “She can’t just get go the point” is a common criticism that all of us have received. These qualifiers deflect listeners from the bottom-line meaning of the message. They give the listener the impression that you haven’t prepared or are afraid to get to the point. If you can place parenthesis around clauses and remove them from statements without changing the meaning of the message, then you will construct a more concise and credible message. Notice the difference when tingents (embedded clauses) are not used:

If you were to ask me, and obviously you did otherwise we wouldn’t be here, I’d say that we should indeed go ahead and move forward. I believe there are a lot of advantages, as I’m sure many of you believe the same, in doing so. So, I thought I’d detail or lay out some of those benefits. The first of these is that it seems that we will be able to save a few bucks in the long run; hence, making this a more financially viable option. With that said, moving forward would also move us quicker and get us out in the consumer hands that much faster, and as we all know, getting to market is key in this business. Finally, or lastly, I believe that going forward with this will cause the competition to feel a bit more pressure and solidify our position as the ones in control.

My recommendation is that we move forward. I say this for the following three reasons. It will be more cost effective. It will expedite us getting to market.  It will put competitive pressure on them.