BESIDE THE POINT

We've lost control of our Broca's area

Posted

I’m a people watcher. I do that.
I’ll always have a book or my phone in my hand while I’m doing it, but I’m a peeker. I watch people interact with one another, or sometimes people-watch them, people-watching me.
Think about that for a second.
But lately I’ve found myself now paying attention to people’s speech patterns and wondering where the heck we get some of the things we get.
One thing that’s sticking in my craw lately is this “Yeah-yeah-yeah" – thing.
Sorry to do this to you all, but now you’re going to be aware of it, too.
People are no longer giving it one “yeah”.
‘Did you see that catch?!’
‘Yeah-yeah-yeah. That was sick!’
I first noticed this when I was out in New York in October. I REALLY people watch in New York City. But you gotta have a certain skill set to do that innocuously. But then I was so innocuous that my daughter, not knowing I was in the city, didn’t even know I was sitting 30 feet from her for about a half hour. So, I got some skiils. Maybe I’ll become an investigator and carry a piece or something.
Anyway, sitting with a Narragansett, which is a great east coast brew that, for some reason, always gives me a sore throat, I listen to the conversations going on in the bar, especially if I move into a conversation with one of Taylor’s regulars.
Once she finally realized I was in the room, she called a regular who had wanted to meet me, to come down. This guy, I swear his name was Sal, was a construction manager and he’s as full-on Brooklyn/Staten Island as you’ll find. I literally think he has SMAWT PAWK, for parallel pawking his caw.
“Yeah-yeah-yeah!”
He came into the bar to my left and Taylor pointed at him from behind the baw (that’s bar and I’ll stawp that very soon). He was just what you imagine in a construction foreman. Ballcap, long sleeve shirt, strong upper body, short and stocky, and friendly as you could imagine.
Many people shy away from New York City because they think people are crude or whatever. I’ve found only a few people in my four trips to that city that make your shoulders raise up. The vast majority of people there are phenomenally friendly.
“Dad, you need another one or a water?”
“Yeah-yeah-yeah,” this guy says. “Bring him one. Whata you drinkin? I gawt it.”
“Where does that come from,” I said with a laugh.
“I gawt it,” he said.
“No, not the beer, the ‘yeah-yeah-yeah'!”
“Whaaat?” he said.
“Everyone here does this yeah-yeah-yeah.”
“Whawtaya mean.”
“Never mind.” I laugh and he looks at me bewildered. He doesn’t even know.
On Thursday, I was up at Tenielle Speer’s new place in West Point on the square doing a ribbon cutting with the Chamber and Tenielle and Matt Morris were talking and I swear, Matt goes “Yeah-yeah-yeah.”
“Where is that COMING from,” I said.
“What?” he said looking up at me.
“That “yeah-yeah-yeah!?”
Again I get the same look and then I go on to explain that I’d never picked up on it before. And this isn’t the sarcastic ‘yeah-yeah-yeah’. It’s an emphatic response in the affirmative.
“Yeah-Yeah-Yeah.” Like… let’s go. Vamos.
I guess it isn’t just a New York thing. But where have I been? I’ve been recording what people say for more than a decade and I’ve never heard that until the last six months. I think I remember Taylor saying it a couple times on the phone or when she gets home.
But now it’s everywhere. It’s like a recurring darkness in my mind and my eyes dart around in public places looking for the next eye-ear-mind collaboration that makes me have a “SQUIRREL” reaction to those three words.
I can’t escape it. I mean I dealt with the “chillax-es” of the world where we decide it takes to much brain bandwidth to chose between either ‘chill’ or ‘relax” so we just smash ‘em up. I can roll with ‘irregardless’ vs ‘regardless” and “very unique” which drives me almost as crazy as ‘amazing”.
So this ‘yeah-yeah-yeah’ shouldn’t be debilitating, right? But it’s consuming me. I’m gonna get a t-shirt that reads, “Yeah-yeah-yeah – Let’s just get it out of the way”.
I had someone call me buttercup the other day AND used the word “whilst” in a text.
I think the COVID vaccinations have stimulated the Broca’s area of our frontal lobes to speed up conversational patterns. or we're just creatures of habit. “Yeah-yeah-yeah!”.
But that’s Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.

Beside the Point, editorial, grammar, diction, New York, slang, frontal lobe, Broca's area, speaking, people watching, opinion, commentary, Chuck Vandenberg, Pen City Current

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