This word represents a particularly severe type of criticism. A context is for example  “his latest report to received excoriating reviews”. The word comes from the Latin  excoriatus, which means to flay, strip off the skin of, to break and remove the outer layers of the skin in any manner. So this word gets to the roots of the problem and deals with it appropriately.

‘Excoriatory’ is not just meant to be a criticism, it means that it was very bad indeed. Other synonyms are:- attack, castigate, chastise, condemn , criticize. You can damn someone, you can decry their words, you can denounce their actions, you can rail against somebody, you can revile them or you can slam them.

I write hundreds of letters or shall I say emails every month and most of them are brief and to the point and forming encouragement for whatever project a person is engaged in. However there are occasional exceptions and I mean occasional possibly once or twice a year. This is one such.

I have anonymized the letter so that in the remote chance of the recipient seeing it there are no identifiers. He had created a web platform for a particular campaigning purpose. We had a 30-minute conversation. Towards the end I was becoming impatient because of the features mentioned in my response letter.

I felt he needed a short sharp shock though that in itself is expecting an optimistic outcome  because once the receiver ise in a particular state of mind, especially one driven through circumstances, it is very unlikely that they will change their view.

When I give my clients intuitive readings I always write a summary which I prepare and send them about 20 minutes after the end of the session whilst it is fresh in my mind and this is in addition to a  summary of the meeting either on Zoom or Skype.

This is the modified text of the E-mail sent this morning: I had never communicated with this person and my only experience was of his site.

Good morning xxxxx

I agree with you that ...the topic promoted…. is a much misunderstood, almost a secret part of our society and is draining off millions of pounds. I think all the high-ups are involved in it.

I understand your need for funds which by the way you mentioned four  times. You tell me that you have moved back with your parents so I gather your other work is not remunerative and this would therefore put you under a lot of strain and requires you to play many parts on the same stage.

I think there is some work to be done on your part involving other people because when I made a couple of points that did not fit in with yours you went on the defensive instead of embracing what I had to say although you may have perceived what I said in a different way.

You did not take up the opportunity to tell me about your background although I would have expected that after my having spoken about myself. Also when I commented on my relevant background which is quite considerable there was no verbal response from you on any of those points so I wonder how much you actually listened to me.

It sounds like which you spend a lot of time on your own imagining things, which can be a great exercise, because I do the same thing but there is a risk associated with that in that you lose contact with ‘the vibe’ of the general public.

You have 2000 email addresses from signers and I’m not forgetting your 15,000 mailing list, this is a precious resource. Don’t worry about redundancy as you’ve got enough potentially active people there.

You say that you are skilled in web design but I’m afraid this is not reflected in your comments about your own home page which has no design at all. You don’t seem to have the feel of what the public might respond to.

I think you need a rigorously disciplined mind and indeed you would need this in order to delegate work. I’m sure there are people out there who would like to assist but this needs to be given out in bite-sized chunks and not huge remits.

I also think you need to be more customer facing. When I mentioned the idea of illustrations you dismissed it saying that that’s not how a newsletter should look like – or words to that effect. What is your evidence for that?

When I mentioned the paragraph length which is a key point for readability you had no comment or reaction.

Coming onto your website itself and looking at the about us page I think the description of your work could be shortened somewhat and the aims and objectives are admirable enough but you do not give any impression of having liaised with other ventures that would have a similar overall types of aims to yourself particularly with Klaus Schwab.

As a professional I would not have put this website up at all until it was in good order, as it is too diffracted to command attention.

You are asking people to contribute money and time to an idea that is scarcely out of the womb. As for your present cohort of subscribers, when I suggested Mailchimp there was no indication from you of familiarity with it or an agreement that this was the type of client that you could use.

When I said that I had used it for ages there was no spontaneous reaction such as, ‘I will have a look at this’, or ‘thanks for the tip’.

I cannot work with someone who gives no feedback.

The same applied when I started to talk about social media, there was no comment or reaction.

If you are simultaneously inviting people to join you and saying you need ‘teams’ but at the same time being reactive and non-communicative this will lead precisely nowhere.

Putting it in other terms, I was not invited to enter a particular door to give something a try

You don’t have a chance in hell of getting funding unless you considerably update your game and presentation. Even then it will be a fight, because there is such competition for funding and more people than you imagine are invested in the said capitalism

While I wish you the best at what is an important project I’m afraid I don’t see the communications skills or the internal discipline necessary for me to interact comfortably

So, readers, what conclusions can we all draw from this missive?

I think it is politically correct but I am confused by the term PC which seems to have broadened to include anything that might give offense to anyone.

Anyway to come on the main points that annoyed me.

# the over arching problem was that right from the start there was no dynamic connection between us. I need a certain minimum chemistry to foster my interest.    There was none.

# There was his acceptance of one way traffic of information and the complete lack of response, save defensiveness, to any observation I made.

# when I mentioned that I also started without funds and that we were kindred spirits in that respect there was no reaction.

# He had not prepared for the meeting and gave the impression of having been caught on the back foot.

# The point is that if someone claims to be an expert on something, they need to walk the talk and show one way or another they know what they’re talking about.

# he was clearly not listening to me. By ‘listen’ I mean ‘full and undivided attention’.

# Another point that’s worth sharing with  everybody.  While he was arranging his screen share – and by the way I frequently had to wait while he searched for things to show me –  I saw his desktop and it was an absolute complete mess with icons displayed randomly over the screen and some icons covering other icons.

That told me all I needed to know about his chaotic state of mind. It’s a good point when you are being interviewed – that you may give away something which turns the whole thing without you realizing it. That is why preparation is so important.

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