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The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

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THE BOOK OF TELLS<br />

Before you've had a chance to say anything else, your<br />

friend might jump in and say 'But!' This is your friend's<br />

way <strong>of</strong> rejecting the s<strong>of</strong>tener, showing that your efforts to<br />

prepare the ground for what follows simply haven't<br />

worked. Weinstein pointed out that interpretations can<br />

also be <strong>of</strong>fered afterwards. A remark like 'That's not what<br />

I meant' is a 'post-interpretation', or what he calls a<br />

'posterp' - it's designed to rule out certain interpretations<br />

retrospectively. <strong>The</strong> 'pre-apology', or 'prepalog', also tries<br />

to mitigate the effects <strong>of</strong> what is about to follow. When<br />

people say things like 'I hate to tell you this, but. . .' or<br />

'I've never done this before', they are trying to get the<br />

other person to lower the standard against which their<br />

next remark or next action is likely to be judged.<br />

Prepalogs play an important role in requests because<br />

they protect the 'face' <strong>of</strong> everyone concerned. Saying<br />

something like 'I don't want to be a nuisance, but...'<br />

warns the other person that a request is about to be made<br />

and that it's not based on any presumption. Because it's<br />

polite and submissive, it puts the other person in an<br />

awkward position where a refusal is likely to make him<br />

or her appear unreasonable.<br />

• HEDGES. Everyday speech is full <strong>of</strong> expressions like<br />

'well', 'sort <strong>of</strong>, 'kind <strong>of</strong>, 'like' and 'you know'. <strong>The</strong>se<br />

conversational fillers are sometimes called 'hedges'. 17<br />

<strong>The</strong>re has been a lot <strong>of</strong> debate about why people use<br />

hedges, and about who uses them most. For example,<br />

people <strong>of</strong>ten use hedges like 'kind <strong>of</strong> (or 'kinda') and<br />

'sort <strong>of</strong> (or 'sorta') when they say things such as 'It's kind<br />

<strong>of</strong> cold today'. <strong>The</strong>se hedges indicate imprecision; they<br />

show that the speaker should not be held to account for<br />

120

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