What is the term for thinking out loud in written form?

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Ivan Seeking
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Most people are probably familiar with the expression, "thinking out loud". Well, I do this frequently [though I've learned not to while in front of customers :biggrin:].

I keep wanting to use that expression in regards to a conversation by email, or on the forum, but in these cases I'm typing, not speaking. So what would this be called; thinking in type; thinking in ASCII; ascinking?
 
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Free-associating?
 
Rambling? (Naw, we're used to that from you...)
 
But I don't quite mean free association. Often it involves problem solving, but the qualifier is that it may not be a well considered path. Rather, it is one being developed as a function of the conversation, and there could be major pitfalls that will be obvious in short order. At least as I use the expression, this is more or less the reason for warning someone that this is just thinking out loud - don't hold me to this as I've haven't thought this through yet.

But, just for fun in either case...
 
Danger said:
Rambling? (Naw, we're used to that from you...)

:biggrin: I realize that with age it gets harder for you to keep up. Don't worry about it. We understand. o:)
 
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Ivan Seeking said:
So what would this be called; thinking in type; thinking in ASCII; ascinking?

Drafting ?
 
Noodling? Riffing? Sorry, but the musical equivalents of playing stuff to see what happens pop to the top for me.
 
thinking on my keyboard
thinking with my keyboard
typing thoughts
keying my thoughts
 
Math Is Hard said:
ivanating? :shy:

:smile:

I usually just refer to it as thinking out loud too, so don't know what else to call it. I guess you could refer to it as brainstorming, which more accurately reflects the process described of tossing out ideas that may or may not help, but get the discussion rolling.
 
Check out the book "The Meaning of Liff" by Douglas Adams. He makes up words to describe just these situations where the English language doesn't have such a word.
 
As opposed to "not thinking" out loud?
 
Hey, I like that! "I'm only ideating here..." Still, it doesn't convey the fact that this is unique to the "printed word"...hmmmm, which doesn't work well here either... unique to the displayed word.

This is only encoded ideation?
 
What's wrong with "I'm just typing out loud"?

The fact that it is technically inaccurate is dwarfed by the fact that it is
- obvious by extrapolation (without having to explain) what it means
- worth a smirk
 
I'm just writing out loud here, but I believe ideating refers to ideas that you already know will not work or is wrong somehow, which is not really an expectation, you just don't know yet...
 
Ivan Seeking said:
Hey, I like that! "I'm only ideating here..." Still, it doesn't convey the fact that this is unique to the "printed word"...hmmmm, which doesn't work well here either... unique to the displayed word.

This is only encoded ideation?

Here's what you do, you start by using an expression like "ideating in print". After a while, the word "ideating", not being a common usage word to begin with, will become associated with the "printed word" and eventually people will start to consider the "in print" as being redundant and will just drop it. Thus a language evolves.
 

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