[ExI] And Meta You Know (was: You know what?)

[Lee Corbin]

PJ writes

> ... all you need to know is the following: we unconsciously and
> consciously copy each other.

Yes, Damien spoke of the unconscious apeing.

> Someone starts a behavior, we see something to admire in them
> and we copy it.  Or we don't see something we admire and we still 
> copy it, because all we really desperately want is to fit in.

Exactly, we copy that which we admire.

But that's not quite the same thing as fitting in, e.g., there had to be
a first person to admire "I could care less" (to mean "I couldn't care
less"), and turned this admiration into imitation.  I'll go back to a
conjecture I just made in an email in response to Damien's idea:
what may have been admired was the lack (!) of sophistication of
the speaker.

Yet the "fitting in" mechanism is clearly very powerful:

> Everything, especially our place in the tribe/pack/clan, is learned
> by mimicry.Don't fit in > don't survive.

Only a small exaggeration.

> If you observe teenagers, you know the bar is only set as high as it
> takes to not be completely ostracized.  That's not too high.  :)

I have wondered occasionally what would happen if my mind was
teleported into the body of a sixteen year old, and I had to hang 
out at the mall, and---upon pain of death---had to become accepted
by the teenage riffraff you'll probably find there.  Am I a good enough
actor and mimic?  At least they'd see that I *was* desperately trying
to fit in, which I think would go for a lot.

> think of writing a speech to deliver to a large group.  If you typed
> up a persuasive essay in proper, grammatical English, and then just
> read it aloud, you'd sound like a dweeb AND you would lose your
> audience.

It's amazing that my favorite part of a talk radio show may be when
the host reads a well-written piece by some columnist, yet I do know
exactly what you're talking about:  If I were to memorize a perfect
answer to some query, then I'd be sure with almost all audiences to 
make it sound as you suggest:

> But if you add the occasional transitional and connective
> words/phrases that mimic regular speech patterns, then your speech can
> come alive, feel extemporaneous and "real" to the human ear and
> therefore, brain.  Because (and here we come to Lee's dilemma...) to
> be Just Folks is to connect with an audience.  Sorry, but it's usually
> true.

Yes, I'm afraid it is quite true, though it depends greatly on the audience.
I'll repeat my conjecture that many doctors adopt prole-speak "I thinkin'
that you probably have..." in order (they think) to lower the social
distance between them and their patients.  Most of their patients, that
is.  Any patient who they truly respect, well, that might be another story.
I fancy that these same doctors speak quite differently at a medical 
convention. 

> Martin Luther King Jr. didn't need those words/phrases,
> but Hillary Clinton does.  (She also suffers from the "Just Folks"
> problem -- a member of the elite desperate to connect to the public.

I reckon.

> To those annoyed by this aspect of human behavior: Do you really think
> you have the fortitude and consciousness to simultaneously live within
> a functioning society and behaviorally exist completely outside its
> loop, and at the same time possess that extra "something" that allows
> your oral communication to sing?

Well, that's quite a daunting list of qualifications.  So my answer would
have to be "no".  But then again, ....allows your oral communication to
sing TO WHOM?  Your audience is still key.  (For example, I'd never
stoop to talking to people on this list as though they were children.
I would refuse even to adopt speech mannerisms here to curry favor or
admiration, believing instead that my honest ideas will gain me
whatever due I deserve.)

Lee

> Fuggetaboutit!
> 
> PJ