Invisible Question Marks

One of the most familiar quotes from the Bible is, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

Unfortunately, legions of men—and women—have not followed the Biblical progression: they have become adults, but they still speak as children. They punctuate and malign their speech with repeated insertions of “like” and “you know?” But their most egregious and pervasive quirk is the sing-song pattern of their childhood. They speak their declarative sentences with rising inflection at the ends, forming questions rather than statements.

The effect is also known as “Valley Girl Talk.”

Taylor Mali, a spoken-word performer, voiceover artist, and poet captured this juvenile speech pattern in a clever poem called “Totally like whatever, you know?” The first stanza reads like this:

In case you hadn't noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you're talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you're saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? You know?

Mr. Mali’s poem was turned into an equally clever video called “Typography” by Ronnie Bruce in which the visual artist accompanies Mr. Mali’s words with animated fonts. And Mr. Mali’s voice reciting the poem on the soundtrack gives perfect expression to the rising inflection he disdains by ending his sentences with what he calls “Invisible question marks.”

The remedy for Valley Girl Talk is to drop the voice at the end of sentences—in spoken language, at the ends of phrases—thus parsing the logic of the phrases. Dropping the voice to punctuate the phrases creates a crisp, clear, and adult cadence. Cadence in speech is like rhythm in music. Think of the main theme of Beethoven’s great Fifth Symphony and its famous pattern of three short notes followed by a long one:

Bam-Bam-Bam BAM.

From the sublime of Beethoven to the mundane, the universally familiar “Shave and a haircut … two bits.” The rhythmic snippet is often expressed without words, as a knock on a door composed of five short notes followed by two long ones:

Bam-Bam-Bam-Bam-bam, BAM, BAM.

Try rapping your knuckles on your desk with just the five short notes…

It sounds incomplete, doesn’t it? The final raps resolve the musical phrase, just as dropping the voice in speech resolves the spoken phrase.

Readers of The Power Presenter will recognize this skill as “Complete the Arc;” the arc is the logic of the phrase, and the completion is the falling inflection that adds the BAM, BAM to your words—and puts away childish things.

(Thanks to A. Gino Giglio for the link to Taylor Mali)