Sam Gentle.com

Erasure multi-coding

There's a really cool kind of error correction called an erasure code, which gives you a super-durable version of a message that, as long as you recover at least some minimum number of bits, you can recover the whole message. It doesn't matter if the bit you're missing is all at the end, all at the start, or randomly spread throughout the message, you can still get it back.

I find the idea of language as error-correction code fascinating, but I don't think anyone is claiming language works anything like an erasure code. Some important words, if you lose them, just mean the sentence is a bust and you have to repeat it. But not all kinds of language are made equal, and there's one particular kind of speech I think deserves particular recognition for its sophisticated error correction, and that's political speech.

The issue with political speech is that you might be taken out of context and your message corrupted or used against you. In official media this is limited to the occasional out-of-context quote, but blogs can do what they like, and people's memories are even worse. There's every chance someone will pick out a few important words they have an issue with and completely forget the rest of your speech. Which is to say, if you want to make robust political speech you need to use something like erasure coding to avoid being misinterpreted.

So, for example, you wouldn't say "I don't believe that children should be made to work in coal mines" because if someone isn't paying attention to the first half they just get "children should be made to work in coal mines". Much better to say something like "I believe that children shouldn't be made to work in coal mines" - no sequence of removed words there can make a sentence that paints your position poorly. I think this is the reason why you see politicans tread so carefully when it comes to speaking about their own positions on issues.

Though actually what's going on is a little more interesting than straight erasure coding. English is by no means comprehensive enough to always guarantee your message will make it through intact but, if you're careful, it can be comprehensive enough to get some other message through. You can say something like "we've seen a massive redistribution of wealth to the top 1% of earners in the last half-century". If you only hear "redistribution of wealth" you think this person supports socialism. If you only hear "top 1%" it makes you think this person supports Occupy Wall Street. Maybe for the right speech, both of those misinterpreations are good enough.

As far as I know, there's never been any serious research into any kind of erasure multi-code, that could resolve into anything in a set of acceptable messages depending on which parts are erased. Presumably that's because for most engineering purposes you want to recover the actual message, not something else. But for politics, well, saying different things to different people with the same words seems to be the holy grail of communication.