In the Gospels, Jesus tells his disciples not to swear by the name of God, or by heaven or earth or anything else. A simple 'yes' or 'no' is sufficient. This is the basis of the refusal of certain religious groups to give sworn testimony. Yesterday on an elevator a person getting off said 'have a nice day'. It was 4 PM. These got me thinking about empty words.
If you have occasion to interact with a patient who has an inability to speak from a stroke you will have a bizarre experience. I am talking about a person with a complete expressive aphasia- can't say a word. If you ask 'what color is the sky' they understand you perfectly. And can't say a word. Their face will tremble with the frustration of knowing the word and being unable to say it. But if you come in to that same person and say 'good morning' you will hear 'morning' back. If you say 'how are you' they will say 'fine' or 'OK'.
The reason is that an aphasic stroke destroys the cerebral center for speech expression, but does nothing to other centers. The replies of a stroke patient are called automatic speech, and they originate from lower centers of the brain, the basal ganglia and the cerebellum. These areas deal with, among other things, learned physical acts. This is why it is difficult to learn to swing a golf club or a bat, but once learned it is refreshed very quickly. The learning is done by the cerebrum, but the smoothing and coordination of the act is by the cerebellum and basal ganglia. In just the same way interactive and thought associated speech arises in the speech center of the cerebrum, but things like 'hello', 'fine', and other stock interactive phrases have become sub-cerebral acts. They are learned situational responses. They require no thinking.
This is why I enjoy giving thought provoking responses. I like to watch people emerge from their cerebrum off position into alertness and daylight. In restaurants servers typically say 'how are you', with the expected reply being 'fine', at which point they typically give their first name and ask what you want to drink. I delight in replying' fine until I saw you', or other situationally inappropriate responses, just to see how the person reacts cerebrally.
Living in the cerebellum and basal ganglia is very safe. Responses do not require intellectual effort and do not expose emotions. It is like a well known dance, with each partner performing well known moves in response to the other without them carrying any sexual or personal connotation.
It also leads to peculiar, meaningless interactions, like telling someone to have a nice day at 4 PM. And in this age of cell phones, where many people on elevators and even in hallways are texting or talking to the air on bue tooth devices, where we are dissociated from our fellow people, these automatic responses further distance us.
When we greet strangers, we may say 'hey', or 'good morning'. 'Hi' implies a level of familiarity sufficient for that informality, and so is not appropriate to strangers or elevators. When we leave, it is 'have a good day', 'have a good one', 'have a nice day', 'take care', 'good luck'.
These cerebellar responses fail when the situation breaks down. What do you say to a woman who has had a miscarriage- have a nice day? Good luck? What do you say in a hospital to a person in a wheelchair with a cast? Brian Regan hysterically satirizes this when he mixes up two stock phrases with 'take good luck'. Oops.
And that is of course the problem. When the situation takes us out of the cerebellar safety zone we don't know what to do. We literally can't think quickly enough to do anything other than stammer, or grunt, or fall back on clearly inappropriate cerebellar responses.
One of the things that makes me odd in public is that I am constantly watching, assessing, analyzing cerebrally. Now I have as many cerebellar and basal gangliar responses as anyone. But very often I am watching and assessing. Thinking. And this leads to socially inappropriate and situationally peculiar replies. Instead of 'have a good day' or 'take care' I will say 'we are all watching the LED numbers as if this will make the elevator move faster'. And of course everyone does this in elevators, for absolutely no reason. But when caught at it no one knows what to say.
My personal favorite is when people ask me 'going up'. I will reply 'No, I'm stationary. You must be going down'. Think about that for a moment and the implications about relative motion. I love it. Others don't.
We rely on empty words and extended phrases to avoid sounding odd. Imagine a person who simply says 'yes' when asked a question. They would sound curt, or slightly schizoid. 'Did you have a nice weekend?' 'Yes'. No modifier, no explanation. No gesture or voice inflection. Maybe Jesus seemed odd to his day. Certainly when we fail to adorn our speech with empty, cerebellar phrases we are missing the steps of the social verbal dance.
I suspect I have fewer empty phrases than many. Oddly this leads to an emptier life, since so many people think I am weird. But they have thought I am weird all my life. And they are right. This serves as an excellent filter to not have relationships with people who think I am weird.
Excuse me. I am stationary. You must be going down. My cerebellum was asleep.
Ted
If you have occasion to interact with a patient who has an inability to speak from a stroke you will have a bizarre experience. I am talking about a person with a complete expressive aphasia- can't say a word. If you ask 'what color is the sky' they understand you perfectly. And can't say a word. Their face will tremble with the frustration of knowing the word and being unable to say it. But if you come in to that same person and say 'good morning' you will hear 'morning' back. If you say 'how are you' they will say 'fine' or 'OK'.
The reason is that an aphasic stroke destroys the cerebral center for speech expression, but does nothing to other centers. The replies of a stroke patient are called automatic speech, and they originate from lower centers of the brain, the basal ganglia and the cerebellum. These areas deal with, among other things, learned physical acts. This is why it is difficult to learn to swing a golf club or a bat, but once learned it is refreshed very quickly. The learning is done by the cerebrum, but the smoothing and coordination of the act is by the cerebellum and basal ganglia. In just the same way interactive and thought associated speech arises in the speech center of the cerebrum, but things like 'hello', 'fine', and other stock interactive phrases have become sub-cerebral acts. They are learned situational responses. They require no thinking.
This is why I enjoy giving thought provoking responses. I like to watch people emerge from their cerebrum off position into alertness and daylight. In restaurants servers typically say 'how are you', with the expected reply being 'fine', at which point they typically give their first name and ask what you want to drink. I delight in replying' fine until I saw you', or other situationally inappropriate responses, just to see how the person reacts cerebrally.
Living in the cerebellum and basal ganglia is very safe. Responses do not require intellectual effort and do not expose emotions. It is like a well known dance, with each partner performing well known moves in response to the other without them carrying any sexual or personal connotation.
It also leads to peculiar, meaningless interactions, like telling someone to have a nice day at 4 PM. And in this age of cell phones, where many people on elevators and even in hallways are texting or talking to the air on bue tooth devices, where we are dissociated from our fellow people, these automatic responses further distance us.
When we greet strangers, we may say 'hey', or 'good morning'. 'Hi' implies a level of familiarity sufficient for that informality, and so is not appropriate to strangers or elevators. When we leave, it is 'have a good day', 'have a good one', 'have a nice day', 'take care', 'good luck'.
These cerebellar responses fail when the situation breaks down. What do you say to a woman who has had a miscarriage- have a nice day? Good luck? What do you say in a hospital to a person in a wheelchair with a cast? Brian Regan hysterically satirizes this when he mixes up two stock phrases with 'take good luck'. Oops.
And that is of course the problem. When the situation takes us out of the cerebellar safety zone we don't know what to do. We literally can't think quickly enough to do anything other than stammer, or grunt, or fall back on clearly inappropriate cerebellar responses.
One of the things that makes me odd in public is that I am constantly watching, assessing, analyzing cerebrally. Now I have as many cerebellar and basal gangliar responses as anyone. But very often I am watching and assessing. Thinking. And this leads to socially inappropriate and situationally peculiar replies. Instead of 'have a good day' or 'take care' I will say 'we are all watching the LED numbers as if this will make the elevator move faster'. And of course everyone does this in elevators, for absolutely no reason. But when caught at it no one knows what to say.
My personal favorite is when people ask me 'going up'. I will reply 'No, I'm stationary. You must be going down'. Think about that for a moment and the implications about relative motion. I love it. Others don't.
We rely on empty words and extended phrases to avoid sounding odd. Imagine a person who simply says 'yes' when asked a question. They would sound curt, or slightly schizoid. 'Did you have a nice weekend?' 'Yes'. No modifier, no explanation. No gesture or voice inflection. Maybe Jesus seemed odd to his day. Certainly when we fail to adorn our speech with empty, cerebellar phrases we are missing the steps of the social verbal dance.
I suspect I have fewer empty phrases than many. Oddly this leads to an emptier life, since so many people think I am weird. But they have thought I am weird all my life. And they are right. This serves as an excellent filter to not have relationships with people who think I am weird.
Excuse me. I am stationary. You must be going down. My cerebellum was asleep.
Ted
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