Speech.
Starting a post with just one word and then a full stop seems so badass nowadays, so imploring it here is a pretty good idea in my books.
Again, Speech.
Something that we humans know very well is essential to our survival; from bashing weaklings to gloating to setting P and even dissing the life out of a random human being who happens to be a stereotypical person who’s offense is being stereotypical.
Let’s be honest, we all gotta talk. But the way we talk differs from person to person. Sure, we can type and be all cryptic like, or even add some poetic bravado to our string of words. In some cases we can add adverbial clauses and even type backwards like the way Yoda speaks. Heck, even the additional of rather complicated English words to prove that we have superior vocabulary than our immediate peers is another way of venturing into the typing pattern. In some ways, the way we type depicts the way we speak, but not completely.
Take for instance Internet trolls, they go on bashing with “LOL U FOOL. BIG FOOL WHO NO SPEAK ENGLISH LIKE CHINESE” and bouts of “Faggot get the f-ck out of this place. If you’re a girl then show us your tits or STFU” (damn I’ve spent too much time on forums), but that doesn’t mean when you eventually meet one of these trolls they’d actually talk that way. The one you meet might pee himself, or might punctuate his sentences with drawn out d’uhhhhhhhhh’s, you get the picture. So, what of the part of typing that does depict how we talk in real life? What kind of pattern do each of us have?
I can say I’ve heard and listened to several speech patterns. A very good one is a Biology teacher I had in secondary school. Now, I’m not here to bash or make fun but he had a habit of saying ‘You understand?’ constantly, so constant it was more a phrase than a question. In secondary school each period (get your mind in the right place kiddo) was 40 minutes long, and thanks to the hormonal changes of puberty we decided to make our time more meaningful one day by counting the amount of times he said ‘You understand’ under 40 minutes. That day, he said his catchphrase about 113 times, I kid you not. At a certain point, we lost track even. What’s the point of this? Imagine trying to have a casual convo with someone with such a catchphrase…
“I like rock music, you understand, particularly alternative rock. You understand? Sure I can, you understand, I can dive in Heavy Metal now and then, you understand, but I’m more particular about, you understand, alternative, you understand?”
Or think about the pick-up lines with that one…
“Hey babe, wanna get a drink with me? You understand? We can talk about, you understand, things you like to do. You understand? Because seeing you is like seeing daylight, you understand, basking in the moonlight under stars, you understand?”
Maybe I’ve gone a little overboard there but if you were in my class then you could very well vouch for what I’m saying. How exactly are our patterns? Do we talk on and on or do we take long breaks in between sentences, wheezing like we need an inhaler? I for one at one point used to talk so fast, people basically asked me to go in slow-mo before I started any story. Even teachers noticed it, like one time I was called out to speak on an impromptu debate. After I did the intro and salutations and was about to support (or was it oppose?) the motion, I was stopped dead in my tracks.
“Chika, we know you can rap quite all right. Now please tell us, are you talking to us now or are you rapping for us?”
Yep… that was in front of the whole school, which wasn’t much of a bummer considering how small the school was as of then. But still…
I don’t talk as fast but now my speech pattern is decorated in places with ‘Things were going well, no wahala’, especially when I’m telling a story. That can get pretty annoying because if I pause the story when things were going wrong and I continue with ‘things were going well, no wahala’ that sort of puts a dent in the credibility of the story. But, like all humans who are tired of telling the truth every now and then, I don’t mind stretching it a bit; but that’s out of the point right now.
Case in point, what’s your speech pattern like? Any particular catchphrase that periodically dents the fluid flow of your story telling? Or is the emphasis more on the movements you like to make with your hands? How about facial expression? One particular catchphrase I’ve heard from people is ‘as in’ which is pronounced ‘asin’ or ‘azin’… Usually, it’s followed by ‘eh’; azin eh what he did was bad. Or worse, are you like those reality TV girls who know how to make every single statement a question? You know, the ones who always talk like this? Because I’m not even asking a question? I just talking? Don’t have an idea what I’m talking about? Then go and watch Keeping Up With The Kardashians…
What’s the point of all this? Am I trying to help ourselves develop better speech patterns so we can have more fluid conversations in the future? Maybe make P setting easier? Heck no, I got bored…
Its funny you bring this up. I’ve been known for having a very peculiar & unique speech pattern. I use the words “Sha” “in any case” & “Anyways” alot, especially when navigating through various topics and sub topics and apparently I tend to talk with my face, unconsciously making gestures with my eyes and nose for emphasis.
I also tend to deviate into sub topics alot. Its like a train of thought that diverges into another and just keeps splitting but usually ends up back at the destination, with my original point.
Sha, its a great post! Witty and insightful!
Thank you! Oh and talking with the face… that can get creepy at certain points in time
haha, Oh men.. Speech patterns… hahaha. I know Phylix will call me out for writing alot of “yo” in my sentences. I tend not to say it as much in person except I feel the need to go ebonics when in the midst of african american friends. I would occasionally pop a “like” but overall I am one of those that insists on using big grammar at some point. I mean I learnt the word, I owe it to myself to make proper use of it right? Oh and about speed and rapping, yeah I still find myself doing that alot. Once this spaceship lifts off, i’m gone. i’m rapping (it’s no coincidence that my favorite rapper is busta rhymes). All in all, I am the perfect example of the guy that beats about the bush. There is this urge to be perfectly clear so instead of “The brown fox jumped over the window” i’d most likely say “Its funny, there was this fox that got scared after I shooed it away and it reacted in a fascinating way. It ran and jumped over the window. It was interesting!”
Oh you so definitely know where I’ll call you out on. By some stroke of faith I have adopted the use of ‘yo’ in my everyday sentences, and use it alot to answer people. But we all have those guilty pleasures we’re not going to give up easily… and talking really fast is one of mine
You do a pretty good job with the beating about the bush part… cool cool.