[ExI] You know what?

[Lee Corbin]

Has anyone besides me noticed a big increase over the last
several years of the phrase "you know what?"   I hear it
everywhere now.  Someone speaking will even interrupt
himself or herself just to get it in.

I do know that the phrase has been in existence in English
as long as I've been alive, and I do remember hearing it as
a child in the 1950s. But it seems to me that about a year
or so ago it swung into major prominence.  You hear it
everywhere:  on TV, on radio---everywhere it seems, where
people converse informally.

I would also like to know how many people who have begun
using the phrase a lot over the last (???) year do so consciously.
Or is the fad unconscious?

And there are bigger questions at issue here.  First, are people
really so mindless that they can be taken over by a meme without
any awareness?   And speaking of fashion in general, why are
people so eager to conform, anyway?

Also, one theory I have is that in many conversations, in America
at least, each party seems to be trying to convince the other of
his or her own informality, i.e., that they are just "plain folks".
If I am on to something here, then in American (or western?)
culture  more and more an effort is made to appear disarming.
I posit that doctors, for instance, will deliberately try to employ
prole-speech in order to come across (they think) as less
intimidating to their patients.  (Often, I counter, they just come
across as less authoritative!)

In the late eighties, those eager to use the latest verbal fashion
found themselves saying "I could care less" to mean "I couldn't
care less", as though seeking to emulate some kind of character
who wasn't big on verbal distinctions.  Then in the early 90's,
"say what!?" became the rage for a year or two.  PJ or Jeff or
someone, please explain to me why this isn't rampant stupidity
(besides being in loathsome taste).

Any thoughts welcomed,

ol' Lee