The Language Cop
As a keen observer of the quirks and colloquialisms of our wonderful, ever-evolving language, I’ve noticed the growing propensity for a new form of sentence filler, and I’ve begun to think I may be the only one for whom it’s an irritant.
My radar for peculiar locutions is always on alert. For example, the first exercise I give students in my publishing class at Emerson College is to identify twenty lazy, hoary euphemisms and idioms that, as editors, they would banish. Unsurprisingly, the list grows exponentially, with no end in sight.
But the issue I’m concerned with here is a mannerism. While it seemingly goes unnoticed by most, it has clearly infected the speech of otherwise informed speakers. I’m referring to the deliberate stammering over prepositions, articles, and especially the personal pronoun I.
This tic might be dismissed as someone simply grasping for the right word—if it weren’t so pervasive. Years ago, the actor Michael J. Fox, in the blockbuster movie Back to the Future, effectively deployed a stammering delivery to express his character’s perpetual state of earnest befuddlement.
Similarly, a consciously halting, deliberative style—perceived as erudition—was evident in the mannered and widely mocked voice of Conservative pundit William F. Buckley, Jr. Fast forward, and it’s as if this affectation has entered our collective subconscious as a pseudo-intellectual trope.
One prime example is a recent video clip of famed celebrity photographer Annie Leibowitz promoting her Master Class on portraiture. In her opening line, she refutes the premise that photographers are obliged to flatter their subjects. In a disjointed retort, she declares, “I-I, I, I, I don’t buy that.”
As someone experienced in video production, I find it revealing that that take was selected in the editing process. It seems Leibowitz’s staccato delivery is a conscious effort to create emphasis and conviction presumably lacking in a simpler, singular use of the personal pronoun. Admittedly, the statement would have sounded clipped absent the string of I’s. Still, it grates.
On NPR, cable news, and elsewhere, interviewees consistently repeat the words an, and, is, and the, staggering through sentences, landing somewhere between absent-minded and pseudo-intellectual. Conversely, interviewers affect faux sincerity by leading questions with a halting w,w-what, w,w-where, w-when, and h-h-h-how. A podcast I frequently listen to features a host incapable of beginning a question or statement without preceding with “So-so-so-so . . .” It rankles like a car alarm.
Except for William Buckley and former talk show host Dick Cavett, two celebrities who were invested in perpetuating an intellectual persona, I find little evidence of this mannerism in media or films from past years. Nor is it prevalent today on the BBC or other UK media, though it has begun to creep into British English. Typically, these quirks emerge mainly in interview settings, and I have yet to witness it in person, reinforcing the perception that it’s an idiosyncrasy rolled out for effect in certain contexts.
To my mind, it’s of a piece with the habit of predicating a statement with “If I can be honest” or ending with “If you want to know the truth,” as if the speaker intends to make their honesty an exception. Similar to stammering—and equally irksome—it feels like a flaccid attempt at forging intimacy with the listener.
Am I alone in my suffering? More importantly, am I correct in my assessment? I’m curious whether others have thoughts on this unfortunate trend. Or even noticed. Let me know.
—J. Heroun
