Speech rules you don’t know you know
Tock Tick.
Sounds wrong to you, doesn’t it?
That’s because in any and all languages, word order is dependent upon vowel sounds.
Mash-mish sounds wrong to your ear. It’s mish-mash.
Chit-chat sounds correct. Chat-chit does not.
Today, we’ll chat about speech rules of which you may or may not have heard — but you sure use!
ABLAUT REDUPLICATION
Our instinct to say similar words in a specific order is based on the little-known rule of ablaut reduplication. Vowel changes in similar words are more comfortable to the tongue in a specific order. Ablaut means the change of a vowel sound. Reduplication is the repetition of the other letters of the successive words. The rule is unconscious: native speakers choose the order without knowing the rule of ablaut reduplication.
In English, vowel order has to be I, A, then O.
For fun, try saying these combinations. Which sounds correct to your ear?
Zig-zag. Zag-zig.
Kat-kit bar. Kit-kat bar.
Flip-flop. Flop-flip.
Tic tac. Tac tic.
Tip top. Top tip.
Hop-hip. Hip-hop.
Sing song. Song sing.
Pretty cool, right?
DESCRIPTIVE RULE
Another interesting rule is how we describe things. The rule demands we order the description: opinion — size — age — shape — color — origin — material — purpose — NOUN.
Old, French, beautiful, white teapot sounds wrong. Beautiful, old, white French teapot sounds better.
This is another speech rule you know, but don’t know you know. Adjectives must be listed in that definite order or we experience discomfort.
Try these examples:
Adorable grey kitten. Kitten adorable grey. Grey kitten adorable.
Big dirty dump-truck. Dumptruck dirty big. Dirty dump-truck big.
The descriptive rule is particularly important for writers (although we do unconsciously apply the rule in conversation). Linguists break down this rule several ways — in either eight levels, as described — or ten levels for the truly anal among us.
The ten level order is: opinion — size — physical quality — shape — age — color — origin — material — type — purpose — NOUN.
Unusual, oblong, green stem. Not green, unusual oblong stem.
Antique blue Ford pickup truck. Not pickup blue Ford antique truck.
However, we can find notable exceptions. According to the rule, it should be bad, big wolf. But we say big, bad wolf.
Do you now realize why?
The descriptive rule is subjugated to the ablaut reduplication rule.
ANIMACY HIERARCHY
When we show something possesses something else, we can say it in two ways:
Grandma’s house.
The house of Grandma.
In Latin-based languages, the versions don’t exist — it’s always the “of” version. For English speakers, the “of” version sounds weird, pompous, and silly.
The cat of my friend.
Ugh.
The rule we are sensing is called the animacy hierarchy. Descriptives are in order of humanness — from the most human, to living thing (like an animal), to inanimate object. The closer to human the possessor is, the worse the “of” version sounds.
House of Representatives is good.
Bridle of the horse is weird but acceptable.
Branch of the tree is okay.
Truck of Joe is unwieldy.
The more human, the less likely the “of” will sound correct to us.
I had never realized this one — but I know I purposefully break the rule at times. As an author, you can use awkward speech as characterization.
INFIXING
Last, let’s discuss where to place your curse!
We don’t say effing-absolutely. We say abso-effing-lutely.
We don’t say freaking unbelievable. We say un-freaking-believable.
This little rule of infixing makes formal words sound colloquial. The prefix starts the word, the infix (curse, explicative, or exclamation) goes in the middle, and the suffix goes at the end. In most cases, to comply with infixing, the swear or exclamation is set directly before the most-stressed syllable.
Our favorite placing of a curse or swear into another word is a type of infixing called tmesis.
Out-fucking-rageous!
For more of these interesting rules, take a look at Mark Forsyth’s book The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase.
