Warren, those are excellent questions. The best answers come from rewriting your example in three different ways.

1. “The doctor told me to stop COMING back to him.”
Consider an equivalent form but with a different person being told by the doctor what to do:

(a) “The doctor told Ms. Jones to stop coming back to him.”

Statement (a) puts you as the listener/reader in the location of the doctor. From the perspective of the doctor, Ms. Jones is COMING back to him.

2. “The doctor told me to stop GOING back to him.”
Consider an equivalent form but with a different person being told by the doctor what to do:

(b) “The doctor told Ms. Jones to stop going back to him.”

Statement (b) puts you as the listener/reader in a location OTHER THAN the location of the doctor. From the perspective of someone who is NOT at the doctor’s office, Ms. Jones is GOING back to him.

So #1 and #2 are each correct, but you have to decide as the speaker/writer whether you want to put the listener/reader at the location of the doctor (#1) or at your non-doctor’s-office location (#2).

In other words, you have to decide whether you want to focus the “told me”

• on the act of the doctor (#1)
   
  -OR-
• on what the doctor is requesting from your perspective/location (#2).

But let’s change your original sentence (#1) slightly:

3. “The doctor told me that I should stop ____ back to him.”
Consider an equivalent form but with a different person being told by the doctor what to do:

(c) “The doctor told Ms. Jones that she should stop ___ back to him.”

Statement (c) is equivalent to “The doctor told Ms. Jones that ‘X’.”, where ‘X’ is a complete sentence on its own.

For example, ‘X’ could be “The sky is blue.” — giving us “The doctor told Ms. Jones that the sky is blue.”.

So what should we put in the “___” in #3?

Sentence #3 becomes “The doctor told me that ‘X’.”, where X = “I should stop ___ back to him.”.

Try replacing “___” in this X with “GOING” and with “COMING” to see which one is correct:

(d) “I should stop GOING back to him.”
(e) “I should stop COMING back to him.”

Given that you (the “I” in (d)) are NOT where he (the “him” in (d)) is, you have to GO back to him.

In other words, you, where you are, cannot COME back to him.

So the correct completion of statement #3 is always “The doctor told me that I should stop GOING back to him.”

I have now written 600 daily posts in a row to this blog.

And this milestone marks a new path for me and this website.

I have decided to put more energy into another online venture. (I will tell you more here about that venture as soon as I am ready to share the good news.)

The result: I no longer, as far as I can see or predict, will be blogging daily here.

I instead will add to this site for one of two reasons:

1. I have something super-significant to say here about better communication for smart people, and my other venture affords me the time to say it.
2. You contact me about something that I find of interest to this site’s readers, and writing about it here requires little time.

In the mean time, I encourage you to check out my Articles section for a handful of in-depth discussions related to better communication.

And remember that you can go to the Archives section for access to every one of my blog posts.

If you have made a daily habit out of visiting my blog, then:

1. I thank you very much for your readership!
2. Please sign up to be notified by email the next time that I post something new to my blog.

Until next time …

Visitors to this website recognize that photographs play an integral part in human communication today.

And this made me wonder: What are three recommendations that I would make to anyone who wants to improve his or her photographic skills?

The answer? 1. Watch your angles! 2. Watch your lighting! 3. Watch your distance!

1. Watch your angles!

By watching your angles, you can dramatically improve your photos.

My first recommendation is to watch for vertical objects behind the people in your photos.

My second recommendation is to look for the best profiles of the people in your photos.

My third recommendation about angles is to “mix it up” a bit.

2. Watch your lighting!

Photography literally means writing with light, so photography is meaningless without light.

I recommend that you watch out for a mixture of shadows and light on faces.

I recommend that you augment lighting where possible.

And I recommend that you be mindful about your shutter speeds.

3. Watch your distance!

Watching your distance requires appreciation that viewing a photograph is not like viewing a scene.

My most important recommendation is to take close-ups whenever possible.

My second recommendation is to notice the depth of field in each photo that you are about to take.

My third recommendation is to pay attention to focus.

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Do you want to learn more about improving your photographic skills? Read “Three Ways to Improve Your Photos” for the article version of this post!

It must be shared by the listener.

This got me to wondering: What are three recommendations that I would make to anyone who wants to improve his or her listening skills?

The answer? 1. Give undivided attention! 2. Listen proactively! 3. Summarize!

1. Give undivided attention!

Giving undivided attention is an honor that you pay to a speaker, as well as a crucial part of better communication.

Put yourself in the speaker’s shoes.

Eliminate external distractions.

Sublimate your agenda(s) while listening.

2. Listen proactively!

“Proactive listening” is more than a buzz-phrase. It is a significant approach to better communication.

Proactive listening means body movement.

Proactive listening means acceptance.

And proactive listening means appropriate interjections.

3. Summarize!

Summarizing ensures that you understood what the speaker said.

Summarizing in its simplest form requires parroting the speaker’s words.

Summarizing in a more complex way requires rephrasing the speaker’s words in your own words.

Summarizing in the most complex way requires analyzing what the speaker said and then synthesizing it into something new.

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Do you want to go into more depth about the topic discussed in this blog post? Read “Three Ways to Improve Your Listening” for the article version of this post!

After all, human communication tends to be more oral than written.

And this made me wonder: What are three recommendations that I would make to anyone who wants to improve his or her speaking skills?

The answer? 1. Learn more! 2. Talk to yourself! 3. Talk to others!

1. Learn more!

“Learn more to earn more.” is a popular expression in America today. Given that your speaking skills often affect your earning ability, I recommend that you learn more in these three ways.

I recommend that you get public-speaking instruction to learn the basics.

I recommend that you improve your voice quality to make you a speaker who is more comfortable with his or her own voice and to be understood by a wider audience.

And I recommend that you learn a new word every day to make you a speaker with greater comfort with words and therefore a more relaxed speaker.

2. Talk to yourself!

Most people believe that those who talk to themselves are crazy, but talking to yourself can improve your speaking skills.

I recommend making videos of yourself speaking into a camera.

I recommend that you monitor your speech for “uhs” and “ums”.

And I recommend that you talk to yourself while learning a foreign language.

3. Talk to others!

Ultimately, talking is useless without listeners.

I recommend that you first pursue public speaking in a volunteer organization.

I recommend that you next pursue public speaking through a speaking club.

Finally, I recommend that you seek a job that requires you to speak regularly.

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Speaking of speaking, I have written in much greater depth about this topic. Read “Three Ways to Improve Your Speaking” for the article version of this post!

The sentence was something like (quote) “If you want to go to college, then it behooves you to do all your homework in high school.” (unquote).

I had been intending to look up this verb, and I finally did.

You see, I was wondering whether “behoove” was somehow related to the noun “hoof”, the plural of which can be “hooves”.

In particular, I was wondering whether “behoove” in some way once meant to put hooves on (oneself) and had its meaning become a more generic to protect (oneself).

Okay, maybe that is a stretch.

And I should have known better, given my knowledge of Spanish-language false cognates for English speakers.

One of my favorite false cognates is the Spanish word “embarazada”, which looks to many Americans like the English word “embarrassed” but actually means pregnant instead.

But I learned when I looked up the verb “behoove” that it originated a millennium or so ago and is related to the noun “behoof”, which means behalf.

Lesson learned (again!): Check your assumption about the meaning of a word when it looks like another word that you know.

It is also about reading better.

Readers are leaders, so it pays to be able to read better.

And this got me to wondering something: What are three recommendations that I would make to anyone who wants to improve his or her reading skills?

The answer? 1. Listen more! 2. Watch more! 3. Discuss more!

1. Listen more!

You can improve your reading skills by listening more.

I recommend that you try reading a book and then getting and listening to the audio-book version.

I recommend that you listen to podcasts about their work from book, magazine-article, and blog authors.

And I recommend that Amazon Kindle owners listen to an author’s words through the Kindle’s text-to-speech function.

2. Watch more!

You can improve your reading skills by watching more.

When a movie based on a book is released, watch it in the cinema or on DVD after you read the book.

When you know that a book author is going to be interviewed or covered in a biography on television, read at least one of his or her books prior to watching the TV program.

And search video-hosting websites for video clips made by other readers about a book that you have read.

3. Discuss more!

You can improve your reading skills by discussing more.

Book clubs represent one of the most popular ways for people to discuss books.

Online forums have become an online supplement to or replacement for book clubs.

And I recommend public events as a third way for you to discuss more of what you read.

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Do you want to go into more depth about the topic discussed in this blog post? Read “Three Ways to Improve Your Reading” for the article version of this post!

And this made me wonder: What are three recommendations that I would make to anyone who wants to improve his or her writing skills?

The answer? 1. Look it up! 2. Read! 3. Write!

1. Look it up!

You have to be willing to “look it up”, if you want to improve your writing.

I go to Dictionary.com to look up word definitions and to check for proper hyphenation of words.

I go to Google to compare frequencies of competing phrases and expressions and to look beyond Dictionary.com for definitions.

And I go to Wikipedia for a rich source of information about words and the English language.

2. Read!

Better writers are more voracious readers.

What/where/how should you read?

Blogs let you read in snatches of time.

Books teach you about deep organization of a topic.

And news websites let you see how the same topic can be covered in several different styles.

3. Write!

I recommend that you “do it” by writing more email messages, blog posts, and articles.

Email messages let you test whether you are communicating well with your recipients.

Blog posts require you to present your thoughts in bite-size chunks.

And articles let you go into much more depth than you can with email and blog posts.

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Speaking of writing articles, I also wrote a complete article about this topic. Read “Three Ways to Improve Your Writing” for the article version of this post!

Thinking about other animals, this has made me ask even more questions: 1. What exactly does “cattle” mean? 2. How is “cattle” related to “cow”? 3. Is it preferable to refer to bovines as “cattle” or “cows”?

Dictionary.com says that the plural noun “cattle” primarily means bovine animals, esp. domesticated members of the genus Bos.

And Dictionary.com says that the first three meanings of the noun “cow” are (a) the mature female of a bovine animal, esp. of the genus Bos, (b) the female of various other large animals, as the elephant or whale, and (c) Informal. a domestic bovine of either sex and any age.

So it is preferable to use “cattle” to refer to bovines in general and to use “cows” to refer specifically to mature female bovines or to refer to the females (usually mature) of other large animals (usually mammals).

This has made me ask three questions: 1. What exactly does “swine” mean? 2. How is “swine” related to “pig”? 3. Why is this flu called “swine flu” and not “pig flu”?

Dictionary.com says that the noun “swine” means any stout, cloven-hoofed artiodactyl of the Old World family Suidae, having a thick hide sparsely covered with coarse hair, a disklike snout, and an often short, tasseled tail: now of worldwide distribution and hunted or raised for its meat and other products..

And Dictionary.com says that the first three meanings of the noun “pig” are (a) a young swine of either sex, esp. a domestic hog, Sus scrofa, weighing less than 120 lb. (220 kg.), (b) any wild or domestic swine, and (c) the flesh of swine; pork.

So swine flu just as easily could be called “pig flu” instead. However, given the third definition of the noun “pig”, and given the claim that this flu does not come from eating pork, it makes more sense to call this “swine flu” than to call it “pig flu”.