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Hmm, that’s interesting

I have to confess that at my age, any company is an audience, and my mind (okay, my mouth) goes into overdrive. One of my favourite go-to introductions to whatever thought or memory suddenly surfaces in the verbal waves I’ve unrolled onto the listener’s beach is “You know, it’s interesting that…” If I’m attentive, and it’s not their first experience with me, I’m pretty sure I can see their eyes roll. They suspect some nebulous jetsam is about to wash up at their feet if they don’t interrupt, or even better, excuse themselves to get another doughnut at the counter. I have to wonder if my recently uncrowded pandemic years have unleashed a herd of vocal crutches –discourse markers– that have begun to strain the anticipatory applause I had come to expect in my usual Food Court appearances with my friends.

As an opening tactic, ‘you know’ hopefully challenges them, but following it with the word ‘interesting’ is probably still an optimistic gamble, an auditory enticement for the audience to pay attention lest the brief glitter from a rare jewel be missed. Unfortunately, now whenever I try to pretend something I’m about to say is interesting, my audience seems to lapse into the sear, the yellow leaf…

But, why do so many of us resort to these these filler words? I’m particularly intrigued by the one I find I can never insert at the proper place in a sentence and still maintain my silver-tongued fluency: ‘like’? Wherever I insert ‘like’, it sounds artificial: an old man attempting to speak like a teenager but without the creds. Unlike the word ‘interesting’ at the beginning of a thought, if I manage to insert a seemingly unattached ‘like’ it impedes the flow, and promises nothing except cadence. Done properly, it is invisible, but under a certain age, not done, it leaps into prominence as something missing in a conversation: a classic ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’ consequence of the zeitgeist I suppose.

Of course, what about the almost universal verbal prop common to someone my age as they try to herd their thoughts into line: ‘uh’? It, too, is almost invisible. I say almost, because if you do listen for it, uh is suddenly a garishly coloured neon sign flashing on and off above a car-filled street. Once noticed, like a piece of celery stuck between the teeth, it is almost impossible to ignore.

I don’t mean to jeremiad on about verbal fillers, but now that I’m retired, I have time to obsess about such things. And noticing oft repeated fillers is a punishment, not a talent. They are the gristles in the meat, the little bones in the fish which, when found, can spoil the meal as you keep searching for more.

But I suppose we all attempt to control our communication: hesitations and filler words are almost universal in spoken language -they occur as often as 2-3 times per minute in normal speech[i] -and apparently, they even occur in sign language. Variations on them (for example, the tone of voice) can serve several contextual functions that establish the relationship between speakers, or even the expected direction the conversation is likely to take. And yet, some fillers or pauses may contain essential information. Filled pauses may signal that the speaker is not yet done, and is perhaps searching for an appropriate word or maybe reconsidering their thought processes. They are signals of what is to come, in other words. Filled pauses may also help infants just learning a language to remember novel words, and even act as cues that something new is about to be uttered.[ii]

In light of this stuff, I have decided to try curb my fillers and to ignore the mindless scattering of discourse markers by my friends, much as I would attempt to ignore a missing a button on their shirt, or mismatched socks should they happen to reveal them when they bend over to pick up the doughnut they’ve swept off the table in an overenthusiastic gesture. I mean I suppose that could also be construed as a discourse marker, but you can’t count everything, eh?

At any rate, the other day, as I was walking along West Vancouver’s sea walk in Ambleside park, I saw my old friend John sitting on a bench in the leash-free area with a much younger man. He was a retired Philosophy professor, and true to form, he was still immaculately attired in his white shirt, red bow tie, and grey flannel pants with his charcoal sports jacket carefully folded on the seat beside him. His long-time husband, a Professor of History at the same university, had died a year or so ago, so I supposed he was starting to socialize again.

“John, I haven’t seen you at our weekly coffee meetings for a while,” I said, stopping at the bench and glancing at his friend.

He turned to the young man sitting beside him. “This is Robert,” he said, smiling broadly. “He was one of my students a few years back.”

Robert sent his eyes on a quick trip to John’s face and then redirected them towards mine as he proffered his hand for me to shake. “Well, uhmm, I wasn’t actually his student,” he was quick to clarify. “I was just, you know, editing one of his classes.

“So were you thinking of switching into Philosophy?” I asked, sensing some embarrassment.

“Well, not really… I’d just heard that he, like, gave inspiring lectures that really made you, well, think, you know.”

I smiled as I glanced at John again. “He’s usually less extravagant with his wisdom at coffee, I’m afraid, Robert.”

“Well, that’s a surprise, John,” Robert said, touching his arm.

“They just don’t expect it in a Food Court,” John replied with a little shrug.

“Well, wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it,” Robert added.

One of John’s eyebrows raised briefly at that. “Interesting phrase, Robbie,” he said. “Where did it come from?”

“Not sure,” Robert replied. “Uhmm… wasn’t it, like, from the Bible somewhere…?” He studied John’s face and then was silent.

John smiled as if he was disappointed in the answer. “Remember, epistemic justification is important, Robbie. Is it knowledge you are offering, or just opinion?”

“Come on John,” I exclaimed, frowning; I could tell he wasn’t quite ready to start dating again.

Robert was embarrassed and stared at his lap.

John smiled and touched his friend’s hand to apologize, but I wonder if, like me, he’d been bothered with the empty filler words crowding Robert’s sentences. He seemed to dislike the crutch-words we all seemed to use at coffee; I don’t imagine he was happy with their profligate appearance in a new relationship either.

And me? Well, I guess I was also surprised at all the empty filler words I had noticed. But, as I heard myself think about them, I wondered if I was… well, also starting to use them in my own head… Uhmm, can you even do that?

[i] https://aeon.co/videos/ums-likes-and-yknows-get-no-respect-but-theyre-vital-to-conversation

[ii] Ibid.

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