The Repetition, The Repetition
“He probably won’t be swinging at the first pitch, because Smith has been a little wild so far,” says Announcer 1.
“Yes, chances are Jones will let one or two go by, to see if Smith is still missing the strike zone,” Announcer 2 responds.
The habit of repetition afflicts sports commentators even more seriously than it does most of the rest of us, because they evidently feel pressure to fill time and often have basically nothing interesting to fill it with. (American sportscasters refuse to learn from the Brits, whose soccer commentary is often so wonderfully minimalistic. Or maybe they know, this being nothing if not a voluble media nation, that they won’t hold their jobs if they don’t yak away.) But in daily life, repetition frequently plays a similarly annoying and ultimately self-defeating role. Many of us tend to say the same thing two or three times in an irritating and counterproductive way during everyday conversations, as I am doing right now (see previous sentence).
Why?
1. Because if we’ve made our point with some effectiveness and see–in the eyes and demeanor of the person or people we’re talking to–that we have, we want to bask in this conversational moment a little. And so we may say more or less the same thing–in different words, usually–again. Generally, I’ve found that giving in to this urge doesn’t strengthen one’s point but vitiates it.
2. We may tell ourselves that saying more or less the same thing in a different way will somehow refine or extend what we’ve just said. Sometimes it does: “I’m really ashamed about the remarks I made about my boss after I left the company. What I said was unfair to him and beneath my own dignity.” Most often, it doesn’t: “I’m really ashamed about the remarks I made about my boss after I left the company. I feel really guilty about what I said about him. ”
3. We may worry about the clarity of what we’ve said or the (in)attention of those who are listening to us, and therefore we say it again.
To say something one time, and say it articulately, and resist the temptation to re-say it, demonstrates confidence in oneself and implictly acknowledges, in a flattering way, the attentiveness of the listener.
All that said, there are two circumstances in which repetition is actually one of the main points of the conversation. One is business meetings, in which the participants must ritually iterate what others have said, especially what the boss has said, in order to accomplish one of the main purposes of these primate gatherings–a kind of verbal grooming. The other is just pleasant chatter, about how well the car is running or how nice the scarf looks or how good the strawberries taste or how well the new shoes fit or what a good movie that was. I’m pretty bad at that kind of thing, I’m afraid. And this deficiency has made me realize that not knowing how to just pass the time of day, without trying to raise the subject of what time actually is, can be just as annoying as saying the same thing, as repeating oneself, as covering old ground.
