38. Small Talk

[Music] This is the illusionist in which I, Helen Zoltzman, bike down on language to stifle the sound of my own screams of despair. Today's show is about one of the things we do to avoid talking about politics. Small talk. How words attempt to bridge the gap between one of our skin sacks and another. Let's prepare ourselves with a little word history. Here's the etymology of conversation. The word has had its current meaning of talk since the 1570s prior to that, it meant living with or keeping company with, which goes back as far as Latin, where conversation originated from Convertare, literally to turn about with, giving the impression that the ancient Romans chatted while dosi-doing. In the Bible, conversation was more likely to refer to someone's social relationships, their place within their community. But from at least the early 16th century, conversation was also a euphemism for sex, and criminal conversation was a legal term for adultery. It's still in use in some places now, but in England, at the peak of such cases in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, husbands who brought criminal conversation lawsuits against their wives or their wives' lovers could win damages equivalent to 10 to 20 million pounds in present-day money, per act of adultery. But earner, if you're with a husband, nothing for you, Georgian era ladies, it's not that kind of conversation we're talking about today, though, on with the show. How are you? How am I, like, looking at my wreck, my pain, I'm just, like, not feeling well. I just want to wash my game of thrones and fall asleep. No, you're not actually supposed to give a truthful response to the question, how are you, unless it's your doctor asking. Hi! Hi! How are you? I'm wearing trousers that are kind of digging into my bum in a weird way. Oh, really? Yeah. They're like across between leggings and jeans and. jeggings. Yeah. And they're fine, but part of them's falling down and part of them's digging in, which is quite a strange combination. Well, great. Now I'm all too aware of the state of her bum crack, but if I didn't want to know how she is, why did I even ask? Because that's what we do, isn't it? This is how conversation so often begin, and nearly every time this is how it goes. How are you? Fine, thanks, and you? Oh, fine. It's not informative, so why bother? Well, it's an exchange that indicates a conversation is being initiated. It's small talk, safe, trivial, small. The challenge is just to have the longest conversation we can in small talk. Okay. You have to start. I start with the most. weather. weather classic start. Of course, nobody needs to know each other's perception of the same weather, but in Britain, you can experience blazing sunshine and an icy girl within 10 minutes. So there's always something to talk about, even if neither of you care. It's still cold at night. Gonna be warming up soon though. I'm sure, unless the apocalypse comes. Probably we'll warm up a little bit more at times. It's a little kind of a apocalypse, but if it's a nice thing, it's a nice thing. I blew it. Let's try again. The weather today was variable in a few different ways. Yeah, it was quite bright when we woke up and then it ranged. There was some hail, I saw some hail. Really? That was a good get. Yeah, and absolutely, it was an interesting weather to experience. Did you have a good day? Yes. There was a lot of variety in the feedings they had about the day. Some of them were good. I feel now you're veering already into something too intimate. I'm trying to be like. You should just say, "Yeah, it was fine, not bad." That's fine. Otherwise, you're giving me an ear into your psyche. I'm not very good at this already. But what is being good at small talk? Is it the ability to keep a like conversation going for as long as possible without ever touching on any matters of substance? Or is it being able to move from small talk to big talk very swiftly? You and the person you're small talking with might not have the same expectations or objectives. How would you define small talk? Conversational foreplay. Sorcey, building up to the good stuff. What do you think constitutes it? Constructs small talk. Yeah, yeah. It's talk I wouldn't otherwise have with a friend. Yes, with friends, you can usually skip the small talk and go straight to familiar territory. The small talk is for minor acquaintances and most often, strangers. It's a good device for going to keep in strangers and exactly the kind of length I like to keep them, which is further than my arms. So it's conversational arms? It's conversational arms, yeah. But go-go gadget arms. Those go-go gadget arms might keep you at a great distance or bring you in for a hug. You gauge which, with a series of microscopic negotiations, in the form of like conversation. You might spend far more time talking about the weather than actually caring about the weather. But you're remarking upon a shared experience that is unlikely to cause offense or an argument, gently cluing you in on where to go next with the discourse. Well, in a party situation is always, so how do you know these people? I'll do like a visual comment. So if they've got a dress I like, even if they've got a dress I have a light. Yes. So you've got a dress on? You've got a dress on? That's a hat. So we get a one. Yes, I'm gonna lay that. Or if like we've gathered for a certain thing or a certain person, you've a comment on the thing or the person. So if you've always seen a film, you're like, what do you think about that film? I think they're like, sorry, then where'd you go? Maybe somewhere topical, you know? So how'd you like them Oscars? They think? That's not gonna work in September. No, no. What's the work towards in September? What's the bigger work? Emmys? I don't follow Emmys. Why's the Nobel Prize? I'm not on top of that. You see, I feel like the September kind of prize. I do need a prize kind of look. Whatever it takes to avoid an awkward silence, right? Pride Preparation prevents poor performance or whatever. The choice of topic isn't the only thing to consider. It's not just about opinion, there's something about the length of time that you're expected to talk as well. So the length of the lift journey or the length of a two-minute conversation industry where you can only ask questions that ask a certain length of nervous thoughts. So isn't it really work today? Yes, it is really work. What's your greatest fear? Well, I'm getting off of this one, I'm sorry. But why dance around each other with these insignificant chats? If you've only got a couple of minutes with that person, you could risk an awkward outcome and go for something more revealing. What is your greatest disappointment? Which do you fear more? Dying before your time or a lengthy undignified decline? If you weren't related to them, would you stay in contact with your family? But. Because I try to get into a subject quite quickly, they back right off it, back towards small talks, they're back and they're baffled that I've tried to talk about something of substance in a short space of time. Or perhaps not baffled, just scared and unprepared. To understand who someone is and to get to that place, you have to know how they're doing today, what they do for a living, to touch base and set up a rapport first. So what you're saying is that it creates an equality between the people engaged in the conversation. So if you do the small talk, you can kind of establish the level the conversation is going to be on. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think if you really do want to have a substantive conversation, this is a way of assessing where their brain is coming from. I've never understood the people like, "I hate small talk. I don't get it. I don't tolerate it." Or like, "I want to have real conversations with people." Like, really? Also, it's just a fundamental way that people care about each other. And even if it's like talking about the weather, it's like assuring like, "Did you have a nice day? Did you get caught in the rain?" Like when I see someone making an effort to produce small talk, and really bothering to ask questions, and really trying to connect with you, it's so meaningful. So the information you're exchanging might not be particularly meaningful, but the fact you are exchanging it is. And if it works, the small talk is a launch pad for a deeper conversation, or at least a more lively conversation. When you meet someone from New Jersey, they go, "Would exit." And it's like, "Would exit off the turnpike?" "Oh, do you?" And I was exit four, which I learned specifically because so many people asked me. Well, people divided into very specific numerical factions. Well, yeah, because-- Well, I've said four out of four. So we're really down near the south Jersey end, and then if you're up in like 11 or 12, you're in the north Jersey, and then some people are practically new York, and if you're in the middle, it's just kind of-- And New Jersey's tiny, but it's very, very divided. It is very divided. By numbers. If someone said to you, "What exit?" And you would say four, "Would that then lead to anything? Or is that just the conversation killed?" Well, if they were an exit near you, then if they were very close, you could say, "Oh, what did you do? What short did you go to? Did you go to-- did you go to LBI or Ocean City or Wildwood? And Wildwood is kind of trashy. Long Beach Island was the one that was closest, and smallest, and then Ocean City was the one that was dry, and so it was more families driving. No alcohol. And it was like a little nicer. So you could evaluate sort of the person's life depending on what they said, and also if we could talk about it. Oh, you're a Wildwood, are you? Yeah, or what port period of time you went there. So what you're doing is establishing a-- a common experience. - Yes. - And then you could advance. - Right. - That's discourse. - Oh yeah, and you would talk about, oh, what's your favorite pizza place in this area? And now people talk about, you know, how close they lived to where the sopranos made it, may have taken place. And I actually lived, I mean, there were stories when I was a kid about people being buried in the woods. - In a mafia. - The mob, yeah. - Right. - They found somebody in one place or something. And so it was like, yeah, so how close for you to-- - Once you've got one to how close you were to a crime scene. - Right. - That's getting quite good. - Yeah, that actually gets a little better. - From a number, which is boring, to a beach, to pizza, which most people can muster an opinion about, to murder, four steps, brilliant, New Jersey, you nailed small talk. We live elsewhere without shores or sopranos. Just have to keep going until we find our way in. - I'm trying to keep the person talking until you-- - Until they crack. - Until they-- yeah. Or until you start talking about something that actually is interesting or something, which doesn't necessarily have to become a ground, it can just be something that they are passionate about the year they're here. - I'm curious as to what the bridge is between the small talk and something meaningful. Because I feel there have been people I've known for years, and I've still never found that bridge. And it's not like I don't like them, I just can't find it. - I think that's all my male friends. - Genio, I've got friends who I've known for not going for 10 years now. I don't know if they've got a girlfriend. I don't know anything about them. - Are you not curious? - No. - No, I'm my business. - So do you job back? Because you're not that into sport, so you don't have that fall back. - We just gaze longingly to each other's eyes. That's why I don't want to know about their girlfriend. (upbeat music) - Your randomly selected word from the dictionary today is. Pronk, verb of an antelope, leap in the air with an arched back and stiff legs. Try using it in an email today. This episode was produced by Devon Taylor, Chica Heirs and me Helen Zoltzman with music by Martin Orstrick. In order of appearance, you heard Benjamin Walker, Easy City, Eleanor McDowell, Dave Pickering, Devon Taylor, Michael the Barman, Matthew Crosby, Matt Hill, Amy Smith, Martin Orstrick, Sam Pay, Avery Truffleman and May Mars. If you want to chat with me, join me at our Luzonist Show on Facebook and Twitter and visit the show at its forever home, theilluzonist.org. (upbeat music) Hello there, connoisseur of podcasts from which you learn interesting things. If curiosity weekly isn't already in your subscriptions, put it in there right now. Curiosity weekly from discovery brings us the latest and greatest scientific discoveries and explains them even for those of us who don't have a science PhD, which my doctor of physics husband will never let me forget. For us allusionauts, Curiosity weekly offers so much linguistic content, like how whales converse with each other even from 60 miles away. How mamasets call each other names, how babies learn language even within the womb, how AI learns language even within the womb, joke AI doesn't just date in wombs, it just dates in our gallbladders. And there's so much more, like the positive side effects of side effects, how cheese might make us live longer, yay! And a topic we broached recently, cat grief. Curiosity weekly helps us make sense of some of the biggest questions and ideas shaping our world. Listen to Curiosity weekly from discovery, wherever you get your podcasts.