the.com/bluntness
Honesty that skipped the etiquette class but kept the receipts.
means Speaking the plain, unvarnished truth without softening it to spare feelings.
from From 'blunt,' which first described dull, unsharpened blades back in medieval English — a knife with no edge to cut cleanly. By the 1500s the word had slid over to describe people: someone who, like a dull blade, doesn't cut with finesse but just presses straight through. The exact root before that is murky — possibly linked to Scandinavian words for weak or stupid — so the dictionary shrugs honestly rather than invent a tidier tale.
- not cruelty
- cruelty enjoys the impact, bluntness just ignores it
- efficiency cost
- saves time, spends relationships to pay for it
- cultural variance
- dutch directness is danish rudeness is american brutal honesty
- best paired with
- accuracy, otherwise it is just volume