Mind your P's and Q's?

What is the origin of the phrase Mind your p's and q's?

1. The letters p and q, with the lowercase letters being a mirror image of each others, were often confused by children learning to write (and also by typesetters).

2. Mind your pints and quarts, as used by bartenders when serving.

3. Mind your please's (P's) and thank you's (the last syllable sounds like Q).

Interesting etymology tidbit: The word peas came from the Latin word pisum, and was adopted into English as pease. Since most nouns take an -s ending for their plural, the s sound was dropped and thus pea became the singular. This is an example of a back-formation.

Types of conversation repairs

In the last post on conversation repairs, we mentioned that there are 4 possible ways to resolve them. Here's an explanation and examples of the 4 kinds of repairs. Keep in mind that conversations that are both self-initiated and self-repaired are the most preferable and least disruptive.

The part of the conversation which initiates the repair will be displayed in red, while the part that resolves the repair will be displayed in blue.

1. Self-initiated and self-repaired

Situations used in:
- correcting yourself
- you can't find the right word, and you find it yourself after a small pause

Example 1:
A: I'm heading off to Sue's-- I mean Mary's house tonight.

Example 2:
A: I need to renew my whatchamacallit-- my prescription today.


2. Other-initiated and self-repaired

Situations used in:
- couldn't hear the speaker clearly
- misunderstanding

Example 3:
A: I'm heading off to vacation next week.
B: What?
A: I said I am going on vacation next week.

Example 4:
Students: We want to [unintelligible speech] the books today!
Teacher: You want to count the books?
Students: No, we want to color the books!


3. Self-initiated and other-repaired

Situations used in:
- you can't find the right word, and someone else fills it in for you

Example 5:
A: I need more storage space on my computer, so I need to get a new umm....
B: A hard drive?
A: Yeah, that's right, a hard drive.


4. Other-initiated and other-repaired

Situations used in:
- you have your facts incorrect and someone else corrected you

Example 6:
A: With the 6% sales tax, that would add quite a bit to the price.
B: The sales tax is actually 7%. *

Example 7:
A: Aren't you glad that today is payday?
B: Payday is actually tomorrow. *

* indicates that the repair has been both initiated and resolved in the same sentence.

Conversation Repairs

When we have to correct ourselves (or others) while speaking, we make a conversation repair.

Repairs can be initiated and resolved by the speakers themselves or another conversationalist. This makes 4 different kinds of conversation repairs, listed from most to least polite:

1. self-initiated and self-repaired
2. other-initiated and self-repaired
3. self-initiated and other-repaired
4. other-initiated and other-repaired

It's pretty obvious that repairs that are initiated and repaired by oneself are more polite than those that are repaired by others. This is because there is an unspoken rule that speakers be given a chance to say what they want to say by themselves.

Conversation repairs happen for a variety of reasons: when we (or someone else) can't find the right word, when we can't hear a speaker clearly, or when we misinterpret an utterance.

The next post will provide examples of the different kinds of converation repairs mentioned above.

Hesitation Particles, hmm...

What is a hesitation particle?

Sometimes known as filled pauses, they often precede a dispreferred response in a conversation. Instead of refusing or declining an offer right away, one usually throws in a filler word and/or a small pause (could be 0.5 seconds or more).

Hesitation particles are common in everyday speech, but often times speakers are not aware that they are using these words themselves.

Be careful of overusing them, as too many hesitation particles can make one sound less powerful or less credible. This is especially true when one is doing a presentation or public speech to a large audience. In normal conversations, these usually cannot be avoided completely and we have gotten accustomed using them often.

Here's a list of hesitation particles in English:
hmmm
oh
eh
uhm
um
er
ah
mmm

Here's a list of filler words to go along with them:
kinda
sorta
like
y'know
perhaps
so
actually
maybe

Preferred responses

There are 2 kinds of possible responses to speech acts: preferred and dispreferred.

Preferred responses are those that are culturally expected, they are the ones that feel the most 'natural'.

Characteristics of preferred responses:
-delivered promptly
-brief and to the point

Example:
A: Want to join us for dinner tomorrow?
B: We'd love to!

Dispreferred responses are those that are not expected, but they are not necessarily rude if phrased properly.

Characteristics of dispreferred responses:
-delayed response
-hesitation particles used
-long-winded explanation

Example (rude):
A: Want to join us for dinner tomorrow?
B: No, your cooking is terrible.

Example (polite):
A: Want to join us for dinner tomorrow?
B: [pause] Well, hmmm... I told Cathy a while ago that I would join her tomorrow for dinner. Maybe some other time, okay?

Since some think that *any* kind of dispreferred response may give off a sense of rudeness, one may try to mask a dispreferred response by lying.

A: So, what did you think of the movie?
B: It was great! [You actually thought it was the worst film you have seen.]

Politeness in conversation

One useful property of indirect speech is that it can convey politeness.

Consider these two statements:

A: "Can you please shut the window?"
B: "Shut the window now!"

Statement A is obviously more polite than statement B. However, B is more direct and to the point. It would seem quite rude to phrase it as such, so we resort to the more polite indirect way (A). Even though statement A is asking a Yes/No question, it is actually a request to perform an action.

Types of politeness

There are two basic kinds of politeness: positive and negative politeness.

Positive politeness: respects a person's right to be understood, showing sympathy

• Letting people know that we enjoy their presence
  
• Liking their personality
  
• Becoming interested in their well-being
  

Example: "Let's get together again sometime!"

Negative politeness: often involves deferring to others and respects their privacy

• Avoid intruding on other people's lives
• Don't be overly inquisitive about their activities
• Don't impose our presence on others

Example: "Excuse me sir, do you have the time?"

More fun with speaking indirectly

The previous post on indirect speech acts illustrated that one is allowed to violate the Gricean maxims to get your point across. Here are some more examples:

C: I promise to pay you back next week.
D: Sure, and pigs will fly.


In this case, the maxims of relevance and quality are violated. D has just uttered a seemingly unrelated response, and it is obviously a falsity. However, the point here is to "match" what D thinks is a falsity uttered by C. This is a bit more polite than responding with "No, you won't."

---

E: How do you like my new dress?
F: Hmmm, [pause] ... Anything good on TV tonight?


Here, relevance is violated. F probably didn't like E's dress and thus F is attempting to shift the conversation to another topic, rather than give a dispreferred response (which is a topic that will be covered in future posts).

---

G: So, Sarah thinks you're cute, right?
H: Is Rome in Spain?

Similar to the first example, this illustrates responding to a question with a question. Keep in mind that one of the requirements for indirect speech acts to work is that both participants have shared knowledge about the context of the situation, and of the world in general. G will recognize that H responded indirectly, but whether H can interpret that response will depend on H's knowledge of geography.

---

One more, I'm sure you've all heard this one:

I: Name 3 things that are important in real estate.
J: Location, location, and location.

The maxim of quantity is violated here. Instead of naming 3 different things, location is repeated to get the point across that it is the most important thing and needs extra emphasis.

Conversations and turn taking

Even casual conversation is organized by a set of rules, although we probably don't realize it because we pay more attention to the content of conversation, rather than the specific rules that govern them. We mark the beginning and ends of our turns implicitly. We don't say things like "Okay, you may now speak" or "I asked you a question, please answer it now!", which would render our conversations quite inefficient.

Here are examples of end of turn signaling:

* raise or lower your tone of voice
* draw out the final syllable of the last word you spoke
* make a pause
* use a "filler" word like y'know, um, dunno, or kinda

Multiparty conversations and getting the floor

In conversations that consist of 3 or more people, whoever is the current floor holder usually decides who gets to speak next. This can be accomplished by addressing the next speaker by name ("How are you doing, Alice?") or by turning toward him or her.

However, if the next speaker isn't specifically chosen by the current floor holder, then there may be competition. If 2 or more people attempt to speak at the same time, either the following will happen:

* the current speaker(s) suddenly stops talking and gives up his/her turn, thus letting someone else speak
* one of the current speakers continues to talk, but increases his/her volume, signaling that he/she does not want to be interrupted

In all cases, participants should attempt to resolve these such competitions in a smooth and fast manner.