This is precisely backwards. Words primary purpose is to get what you want. The fact that words have a nominal meaning is strictly incidental. As a corollary, the folks best situated to get what they want out of life are those who understand logic well enough so as to wield it as a weapon, but who are not themselves captured by logic so much as to see that some of their own desires are inconsistent with their ideals.
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The way I see it, geeks are good at learning under school conditions. The biggest risk is that you will learn what teachers want to teach you, which is typically weak, passive behaviour.
When I look back at my worst (read self-defeating) characteristics:
-I tend to listen rather than speak
-I don't act dominant with women
-I take no for an answer without pushing for yes.
-I don't bug people to get what I want
-and yes, I try to use words to transfer information rather than express group membership and other social goals
These are all things that I was explicitly taught at school. Not just bad examples or by implication but straight out taught deliberately.
Being a big geek I learned it well.
One last one:
-Because I'm trying to use words to transfer information, I assume that when other people tell me things they do so because they want to give me that information. This leads to big problems sometimes when the real reason is to express some social display and the information they've apparently given me is in fact the exact opposite of the truth.
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