Epictetus, that old Greek Stoic, pointed out that "We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak." Most of us seem to prefer the speaking part, and we thereby disappoint our tomatoes. According to "Tomato Plants 'Scream' When You Cut Their Stems!," a March 2024 article from StudyFinds.org ("Research in a Nutshell"), Tel Aviv University researchers found that tomatoes and tobacco "emit airborne sounds similar to "bubble-wrap being popped that is detectable from more than three feet (39.3 inches) away when they are thirsty," and when "under pressure – from dehydration or having their stems severed – [they] give out sounds that are comparable in volume to normal human conversation. The frequency of the noises is too high for human ears to detect, but it's possible for insects, other mammals, and possibly even other plants to hear them."
There's a lot of speaking going on in nature, and we're beginning to get a glimmer of what some of the more conversant mean. "Scientists Are Starting to Decode What Sperm Whales Are Saying," a recent Washing Post article by Mark Johnson, reports that "Researchers studying thousands of recorded calls have discovered a kind of "sperm whale phonetic alphabet" embedded in their strings of "click" sounds. The finding suggests these whales have a communication system considerably more complex than previously thought …. For sperm whales, bursts of clicks known as a codas come in different varieties and form the building blocks of speech, just as human language emerges from the different vocal sounds we combine to form words and sentences. The whales shape these codas into some 300 types by varying their duration, rhythm and tempo, and sometimes by adding an extra click …. Sperm whales do not sing like humpback whales. They make clicks to detect prey as well as communicate using their phonic lips, organs composed of fat and connective tissue located at the opening of the nose. The phonic lips open very briefly and slap back together, creating a loud click that is then amplified in the nasal complex." However, it's important to realize that "we still don't know whether you want to think of a coda as being a word, or like a sentence, or like an individual vowel or consonant
When it comes to yakking, no other species can compare to homo sapiens. Consider glossolalia (i.e. "speaking in tongues") which Wikipedia defines as "an activity or practice in which people utter words or speech-like sounds, of the thought by believers to be languages unknown to the speaker." Xenolalia, by contrast, "relates to the belief that the language being spoken is a natural language previously unknown to the speaker." In the hands of many Americans, regular spoken English becomes rife with irritants. Take the profuse use of the work "like," a simple term meaning "pleased by, in favor of." It's generally agreed that post-Boomer generations often employ "like" in other ways. "Why Do People, Like, Say 'Like' So Much?," a TheGuardian article by Sam Wolfson, notes that ""like" isn't just a filler word. It's actually an incredibly versatile and dynamic word." There is the "quotative 'like'," as in "She served me lasagna, and I was, like, that's delicious." This "allows you to tell a story without promising complete accuracy." Then there's "like" as a "discourse marker" which acts as an adverb meaning "approximately."
Over-use of "like" didn't begin with the Valley Girls of the 1970s-80s, but they gave it a solid boost with their pattern of speaking that's now known as Valspeak. The Los Angeles Almanac states that "Valspeak or Valley Speak is a social class dialect (or sociolect) said to have originated among materialistic young upper-class white women in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley during the 1970s. It came to be more widely popularized after the 1982 release of Frank Zappa's parody music single 'Valley Girl' in which his teenage daughter, Moon Zappa, monologued in the dialect behind his music." Wikipedia elaborated, saying "High rising terminal (also called 'up speak' or 'uptalk') is a defining feature of Valleyspeak. Statements have a rising intonation, causing declarative language to appear interrogative to listeners unfamiliar with the dialect." Moreover, Valspeak crossed genders; "Even though the gender difference is notable, the majority of both men and women speak in uptalk in Southern California. In fact, 100% of the participants used uptalk when they asked a confirming question," as in "To get to Noel Wien Library take Airport West and turn right on Cowles Street?" We can also assign to the Valley Girls the rise of "totally" (as in "I agree"), so (in place of "very"), and Oh my God ("shocked").
Sometimes actions speak more loudly than vocalizing, and in these divisive political times, too many among us think it's become permissible to be rude, mean, hurtful, abusive, and cruel. In their minds openly shaming those who hold different views is fine, including being downright uncivil. They call it "vice signaling" and believe such ugliness is called for to shame those they deem "virtue signalers." According to the Cambridge Dictionary, virtue signaling "is an attempt to show other people that you are a good person …. The expression is often used to imply by the user that the virtue being signaled is exaggerated or insincere. One example often cited as virtue signaling is 'greenwashing' … when a company deceptively claims or suggests that its products or policies are more environmentally friendly than they actually are."
Some hot heads are advocating that everyone with the wrong bumper sticker or a yard sign promoting cultural diversity and racial accord deserve outright abuse. Washington Examiner writer Eric Felten pulled no punches in "The Needful Rise of Vice-Signaling" in which he wrote that "vice-signaling is about being rude to the right persons, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way." The devil's in the details, for Felten's first example of the right way to go about vice-signaling comes from the "Animal House" movie scene where John Belushi's toga-draped character sees a guy playing guitar and singing to a girl. Belushi "gives a little listen before grabbing the guitar and smashing it. The singer was virtue signaling and Belushi was vice-signaling." Felton's second example of vice-signaling came from "Caddyshack," wherein Rodney Dangerfield is sailing in his boat, considers another boat to be pretentious, and he sinks it with his anchor. Felton carefully points out that "the problem these days isn't the self-satisfaction of the country club set. They do not loom large in the culture and, in any case, have the good taste (and even better sense) to enjoy themselves behind private hedges. No signaling there." He goes on to note if your neighbor buys an electric car, you should respond by purchasing a known gas guzzler and "make sure to park it on the street in front of your neighbor's house where it takes up all the spaces within reach of his extension cord" since e-cars "have a nasty habit of bursting into flames if left in a confined space. You will have displayed your aesthetic while annoying and inconveniencing those who disagree with you." He should reflect on Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was married to the British ambassador to Ottoman Empire in the early 1700s, learned to adapt to life as a Christian woman among the Moslems in Constantinople, and recalled that "Civility costs nothing, and buys everything." Or as former Vice President Mike Pence, used to say on his radio show, "I'm a conservative, but I'm not in a bad mood about it."
It's hard to tell what makes some people speak, think, and act the way they do, but NY Times writer Carl Zimmer wondered in a recent article "Why Do People Make Music?" He cited a new study in which "researchers found universal features of songs across many cultures, suggesting that music evolved in our distant ancestors." Zimmer noted that "Origin of the Species" author Charles Darwin was "baffled" by "mankind's ability to produce and enjoy melodies," and our ability to do so "must be ranked amongst the most mysterious with which he is endowed." Meanwhile, his contemporary William James maintained that making music is "mere incidental peculiarity of the nervous system." Zimmer described how a team of scientists ("comprised of musicologists, psychologists, linguists, evolutionary biologists and professional musicians, scientists") "have analyzed the acoustic properties of thousands of songs recorded in dozens of cultures" and learned that "songs share certain features not found in speech, suggesting that Darwin might have been right: Despite its diversity today, music might have evolved in our distant ancestors." They studied traditional songs from cultures around the world and, "despite their variety, all the songs shared a number of features that set them apart from speech. The pitch was higher and more stable, for example, and the tempo was slower.
At your public library you'll find reliable information about speaking in all its disparate forms, and on the importance of common courtesy that's necessary for any community to thrive. After all, as historian Will Durant pointed out, "To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves."
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