Completely Comprehensible Vague Language

Hey there, you have a wig with words.

Hi, this is Monica, and I’m calling from Burlington, Vermont.

Oh, hi, Monica. Welcome to the show. What can we do for you?

Well, I’ve been thinking about words like cattywampus and thingamajiggy and sort of silly words like that.

And a couple questions. One is, I’m wondering, is there a sort of a category that these fit into other than just sort of slang?

You know, do they have their own category? And my other question is, what is it about these words that make us understand? We often understand what they mean, even without being given a definition. For example, a friend of mine, I believe she made this word up. She says kerfunkulated. So she’ll say like, oh, my day got all kerfunkulated. And the first time I heard it, I knew exactly what she meant.

Right. I didn’t have to ask for a definition. I just knew.

So what is it about these words that make them so easily understandable?

That’s interesting. I think I would exclude cattywampus for a moment.

Let’s just set that aside for now. What other words would you put in this category?

Like whatchamacallit.

Doohickey?

Doohickey. Perfect word. Yep.

Okay, good.

Dumaflachy?

Yeah, things like that.

Okay.

The reason I excluded cattywampus is it’s not what we call a placeholder word.

And all those other ones are placeholder words.

They have an imprecise meaning.

They just kind of fill a hole where we’re not quite sure what goes there, but we know something goes there.

And usually it’s a noun.

And cattywampus actually just means crooked or askew.

And so it actually has a solid meaning.

And even though it’s an odd word and a weird word and has like one million spellings, it’s got a meaning.

And that’s why we understand it.

But those other words, those placeholder words, as linguists call them, those are worth investigating.

And that’s a good question.

And that’s why I’m interested you asked.

There is an astonishingly wonderful book.

It’s academic.

But if you can find a used copy of it and you’re willing to wade through the academies, it’s rewarding.

And it’s by Joanna Chanel, or Channel, C-H-A-N-N-E-L-L.

It’s called Vague Language.

And this book delves into the intricacies of how and why we use vague expressions.

And what she says in this book is that vague expressions, vague language, are strategic.

They’re not a sign of speaker incompetence, and they’re not a sign of linguistic deficiency.

They’re not necessarily or maybe never because you forgot a thing.

They indicate other pragmatic things.

So, for example, they may indicate that we all belong to a certain group, the three of us, you, me, and Martha.

If I say, oh, hand me the dumaflatchy, we all know what I met because we’ve been in this place before.

We’ve worked together before.

And you know that I mean microphone or I mean microphone cover or I met keyboard or whatever it was.

And so I don’t really have to explain.

And I’m just kind of showing this kind of group cohesion.

And that’s an important thing.

Another thing that they can do is they avoid.

How should I put this?

They avoid being specific.

And sometimes we do want to avoid being specific.

She, the author of this book, Joanna Channel, she challenges the notion that it is always desirable to be precise in language.

This is a common mistake from non-linguists who think that it’s always important to be precise.

And what she shows, I think very successfully, is that vagueness is an important part of social interaction and common discourse.

But here’s a really great example.

Everyone knows this example.

If I say to say, Martha Ann Barnette, come over here.

She knows I’m upset, right?

Because I’m very precise.

I use her precise name.

But if I say, Martita, come over here.

I’m using my pet name for her.

It’s a little less precise, right?

We do sometimes call her Martita on the staff.

And I call him Gertie.

Long story.

Long story.

It’s on a past episode.

So it’s a little less precise.

Somebody who doesn’t know us might not understand why I call her Martita or who I’m even talking about.

And then she knows that I’m not angry or I don’t have an issue.

And so this is what’s happening with those placeholder words.

Like thingamajig or doohickey or dumaflatchy or what have you.

There’s a lot more to say about this.

It’s all in the book.

That’s fascinating.

It’s also, it’s more playful.

And like when my friend says that her day was kerfunculated, it doesn’t make her seem really angry about it.

It’s just like, oh, well, got all messed up, you know, but it’s okay.

And it’s expressing so much more.

That is fascinating.

I’m going to have to look up that book.

Yeah, and there’s another book, if you can’t find that one.

And again, that book is Vague Language by Joanna Channel, C-H-A-N-N-E-L-L, published by Oxford University Press in 1984.

There’s another one called Vague Language Explored, which is a collection of essays edited by Joan Cutting, C-U-T-T-I-N-G, which was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2007, which might be worth looking into.

Monica, thank you for calling. You take care of yourself, all right?

You too. Thank you for taking my call.

Yeah. Bye-bye.

Great question. Thanks, Monica.

Bye. Thanks.

Bye.

Well, pick up that thingamajig and give us a call, 877-929-9673.