Talking the Talk

By Deanna Zandt, AlterNet. Posted November 11, 2005.

"Whaaaassssuuuuuuup?!"

Remember that phrase? Still trying desperately to forget it? Good luck. It's one of the most pervasive pieces of pop language in recent memory. What you might not know, however, is that before it was an advertisement for beer, it was a short film by a young black copywriter in Chicago. The film catalogued the soon-to-be ubiquitous phrase's popularity among filmmaker/copywriter Charles Stone III and his friends for 16 years; Budweiser saw the potential for an advertising hit, bought it, and the rest is pop history.

Oh, and it's actually spelled "Whaazzzaahhhh?!," in case anyone is keeping track.

Stories like this are the subject of Leslie Savan's new book, Slam Dunks and No-Brainers: Language in Your Life, the Media, Business, Politics, and, Like, Whatever. Savan, a former advertising columnist for many years at the Village Voice, is taking on the rugged world of the social application of language. She has produced a work that slides past the sensitivity most people hold to the way they speak and goes for the jugular of exposing pop language for what it is.

Well, what is it, exactly? Savan tackles that question in an excerpt from the book's introduction that AlterNet has published, and it's a question whose answer evolves and changes, depending on who's asking it and when. Savan proposes that this examination is not a strict, finger-wagging criticism of the way we speak, but an exposé of the effects of mass marketing and mass media on the way our brains process and regurgitate information.

Writing about language is a challenge when considering the fact that the subject matter is the essential tool in the explanation. Savan's personal preferences for language are strong themes throughout the book, but nonetheless she succeeds in breaking down complex issues: the Orwellian, "regular guy" vocabulary of the Bush administration, the appropriation and stereotyping of African American dialects and slang, the effects of the digital age on the way we speak, and more.

Savan doesn't pretend to be an expert in any of these areas; she cites numerous sociolinguists and scholars for the research that she bases her theories on. Rather than being an academic exercise or prescriptive diatribe, Slam Dunks and No Brainers is the beginning of a discussion that shows how pop affects our ability to process information, and how we relate to one another in the Age of Inundation.

AlterNet had a chance to speak with Savan about the book in late October 2005.

Where does pop language come from? The media?

Part of what pop language is, is words and phrases that have a glamour or cachet… they're clichés with cachet, you might say. [laughing] It comes from everyday, "regular" people. It doesn't come down to us from media, from advertising agencies and sit-coms. But, once the sit-coms and the ad agencies pick up on how catchy it is, they distribute it and use it more as punchlines. Many of the phrases like "I don't think so" are used as the punchline of an ad.

For example, "no brainer -- " there are whole ads that would spin on the use of the words "no brainer." Dozens of ads and movie trailers, particularly, have turned on "Yessss!" Some of the movie trailer producers would tell me that they were so thankful when there was a "Yessss!" in the movie, because they knew they could produce their whole ad on that "Yessss!" They explained that it very consciously says, "Yes, I'll go see this movie." It makes you one of audience, it builds up the excitement and sort of generalizes without saying what the movie is, what the context is, what the characters are.

Once the media and marketing pick up on the language and then send it back to us "regular people," we pick it up and feel new cachet, new glamour. It connects us to the millions of other people that are saying it, too. Here we get into another aspect of the definition, which is that you are "the crowd" speaking when you speak this language. You seem to have them in the background, on your side, helping you to make the point and winning the moment.

You say in the book that pop language in this sense is a social equalizer, maybe a show of solidarity. How does that happen?

I say that it's a social equalizer, it shows that you have the necessary skills to either mimic, or link to, or be part of that "ideal American personality." That personality is very mainstream, upbeat, ironic here and there when necessary, but also sentimental and heartfelt at other times… it's not just one thing, like everybody's personality, it has many sides. The "regular guy" thing -- the words are "guys," "walk the walk, not just talk the talk," "step to the plate," or just "step up." It's not just an ironic personality.

Deanna Zandt is a contributing editor at AlterNet.

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