Open Writing

“Eletroencefalografistas,” or “electroencephalograph technician,” is the longest word in the Spanish language, weighing in at 23 letters, according to About.com expert Gerald Erichson. He notes that it’s not only a letter longer than the prior Guinness record holder, “superextraordinarisimo,” which means “most superextraordinary,” but it’s also actually in use, while the latter doesn’t even appear in Spanish-language Google searches. Such fabricated terminology reminds me of Mary oppins’ “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” but sometimes less can be more, as with tiny filler words used far more commonly in every language group.

Technically known as “embolalia,” filler words, like “er” and “um” are cues to listeners that the speaker isn’t finished and needs a moment to pull their thoughts together. Taking turns is implied in the dance of conversation, and embolalia are used throughout the world to help move things along with minimal confusion. They slip into most conversations because they contain “neutral vowel sounds” and are “among the easiest sounds to make.”

Linguists call the smallest meaningless speech sounds “phonemes,” and the smallest meaningful speech “morphemes.” Overuse of morphemes, such as “like,” “okay,” and the dread “you know,” can drive listeners nuts if they’re overused compared to the “er” and “uh” phonemes. David Usborne wrote in “The Independent” that Caroline Kennedy, JFK’s daughter, so overused the phrase “you know” during her recent abortive senate campaign, that it engendered “not a little mockery of her dependence in conversation of the verbal filler. She was heard to utter it 138 times in a conversation with reporters from the NY Times. In a single TV interview she reportedly galloped past the 200 mark. That’s a lot of you knows.”

Caroline isn’t the only politician making a mark with verbal gaffes. President Obama has received criticism for repeatedly using “I” instead of “me” in sentences like “a very personal decision for Michelle and I,” and “the main disagreement with John and I.” English teachers maintain that “I” is a subject and “me” is an object, but it’s easy to get thrown by their proper usage. When in doubt, I break such sentences into smaller phrases. Instead of “Clare and I (or me?) love the library,” I drop her from the sentence and it’s instantly clarified as “I love the library,” and it’s obvious that “Clare and I” is correct.

It was okay to use either term for most of English’s historical usage. Patricia O’Conner writes in the NY Times that no less than William Shakespeare wrote “All debts are cleared between you and I” in “The Merchant of Venice.” O’Conner also notes that “I” versus “me” usage became an issue in 1846 in the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, and that stance was driven home by subsequent self-help books, like Richard Bache’s 1869 “Vulgarisms and Other Errors of Speech,” when Latin rules, particularly “its rigid treatment of subject and object pronouns,” began to be overlaid onto English. Other awkward rules, like the unnecessary abhorrence of split infinitives, also came from applying Latin rules to English.

Choosing the correct words out of the quarter-million terms at the disposal of English speakers is one of our brain’s more amazing juggling acts. Researchers from Rice University have found that two parts of the brain, the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and the left temporal cortex, both “respond to increased conflict among words competing for selection during speech,” but “only the LIFG is necessary to resolve the competition for successful word production. The LIFG includes Broca’s area, responsible for aspects of speech production, language processing and language comprehension.” This research could advance treatment for aphasia, “an acquired language disorder as a result of stroke.”

It may also prove helpful to eggcorn sufferers. About.com defines “eggcorn” as “A word or phrase used by mistake, usually because it is a homophone or sounds similar to the original word or phrase.” Examples of common eggcorns include “mute point” and “bare in mind.” “Eggcorn” was coined by linguist Geoffrey Pullum from a confused spelling of “acorn,” and amusing instances of eggcorns abound, like “a posable thumb,” “lame man’s terms,” and “come to knot.” But don’t let me hear you say anything about “lie berries,” else I might have to, er, extract vengeance.