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

[PJ Manney]

On Jan 23, 2008 7:26 AM, hkhenson <hkhenson at rogers.com> wrote:
> Now Meta mode.  Why do these things infest speech?  I am fairly sure
> I know.  It helps understand the model if you know how Bisync
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_Synchronous_Communications works.
>
> "Fillers" such as these act like sync bytes, i.e., they inhibit turn
> around and keep the communication line open in one direction until
> more speech is generated.
>
> The problem is that generating filler "sync bytes" eats into the
> capacity to generate more speech, often resulting in a serious
> apparent drop in a person's ability to communicate.  As they say in
> speech classes, slow down, and you communicate more.
>
> Speech patterns (and sanity itself) are maintained by group feedback
> effects in deeply social animals like us.  Don't hesitate to ask
> friends to ding you for sticking fillers into your speech.  They will
> often respond "Do I do that?" and ask you to ding them too.

Keith nailed it.  I never heard of BSC before, but all you need to
know is the following: we unconsciously and consciously copy each
other.  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.  Everything,
especially our place in the tribe/pack/clan, is learned by mimicry.
Don't fit in > don't survive.

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.  :)

Think of the "You Knows" and "Ums" (my big problem, because I AM
always looking for the right word and of which I am trying to cure
myself!) and their ilk as the connective tissue of speech.  In fact,
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.  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.  (I'm swatting at Lee's figurative brick bats in my mind.)  It
takes a real orator who can act their speech to avoid using those
words or speech patterns and still breathe life into the spoken word.
For instance, 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.
MLK had the opposite issue -- he needed to appeal to everyone,
including the elites he was fighting.  He needed to communicate better
than them.  And he did.  Interesting dynamic, that...)  (Check out the
"I Have A Dream" speech -- only a great orator could pull that off,
especially the repetitive motifs reminiscent of religious prayer in
the second half.)
http://www.mlkonline.net/dream.html

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?

Fuggetaboutit!

PJ