--- title: The tone in the “I don’t know” makes a difference. description: A short dialogue illustrating how the tone and delivery of 'I don't know' can convey very different impressions — one apologetic and uncertain, the other... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-tone-in-the-i-don-t-know-makes-a-difference--ooqsdgyhw twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The tone in the “I don’t know” makes a difference. | daily.dev og:description: A short dialogue illustrating how the tone and delivery of 'I don't know' can convey very different impressions — one apologetic and uncertain, the other... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-tone-in-the-i-don-t-know-makes-a-difference--ooqsdgyhw og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/OOQsDgYhW.png og:image:alt: The tone in the “I don’t know” makes a difference. og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The tone in the “I don’t know” makes a difference. **[Google for Developers](https://daily.dev/sources/googledevelopers)** · 1 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A short dialogue illustrating how the tone and delivery of 'I don't know' can convey very different impressions — one apologetic and uncertain, the other confident and direct. The implicit message is that how you communicate uncertainty matters as much as the words themselves. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Speak in the affirmative: "Do this" versus "Don't do that"](https://daily.dev/posts/speak-in-the-affirmative-do-this-versus-don-t-do-that--hv4gcmgkn) · Tech Lead Digest · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [I Asked an AI the Same Question 10 Different Ways — And the Answers Changed](https://daily.dev/posts/i-asked-an-ai-the-same-question-10-different-ways-and-the-answers-changed-7tlrz13rb) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#general-programming](https://daily.dev/tags/general-programming), [#google](https://daily.dev/tags/google) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-tone-in-the-i-don-t-know-makes-a-difference--ooqsdgyhw) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The tone in the “I don’t know” makes a difference.","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-tone-in-the-i-don-t-know-makes-a-difference--ooqsdgyhw","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-tone-in-the-i-don-t-know-makes-a-difference--ooqsdgyhw"},"datePublished":"2026-03-25T04:11:37.467Z","dateModified":"2026-03-25T04:11:51.793Z","description":"A short dialogue illustrating how the tone and delivery of 'I don't know' can convey very different impressions — one apologetic and uncertain, the other...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wTwgaoG6qjc/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wTwgaoG6qjc/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Google for Developers","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Google for Developers","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--jj3nxRoG--/f_auto/v1725035497/logos/googledevelopers","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/googledevelopers"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-tone-in-the-i-don-t-know-makes-a-difference--ooqsdgyhw","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"general-programming,google","timeRequired":"PT1M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"The tone in the “I don’t know” makes a difference.","description":"A short dialogue illustrating how the tone and delivery of 'I don't know' can convey very different impressions — one apologetic and uncertain, the other...","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wTwgaoG6qjc/sddefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-03-25T04:11:37.467Z","duration":"PT1M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/OOQsDgYhW","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/wTwgaoG6qjc"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Google for Developers","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/googledevelopers"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"The tone in the “I don’t know” makes a difference."}]} ```