Modern life moves too swiftly. Because we speak so fast and furiously, our brains need to pause to enable them to catch up with the spewing verbiage that is issuing from our mouths.
The brain doesn't programme a silent pause, it produces a phrase from the individual's databank of stock phrases. At the lowest level, in every way, this results in the continuous use of the F word - loudly demonstrated by the character, aptly named Frank, in the David Lynch movie 'Blue Velvet'.
This individual, the epitome of evil, uses the F word as noun, adjective and verb with brain-deadening repetition. His style, probably with less evil intent, is mirrored throughout the land.
The fascinating point is that these ejaculations are a passive response and the individual is unaware that the word is being used. The F word is in fact a mental pause.
So 'Who are you f*****g looking at, you f*****g idiot?' is actually 'Who are you looking at, you idiot?'
This behaviour does not just apply to those with extremely limited vocabulary. In fact, I have to confess that during my sojourn as a Government Bond Salesman, which involved virtually continuous client telephone contact, I apparently had a stock phrase that I produced with such regularity that it nearly drove my colleague in the next hutch to murder. He can't remember it now; time is a great healer, and I never consciously knew what it was. He claims that after he threatened me with instant death if I ever used it again, I abruptly stopped. I can't say, because I never knew that I was saying it anyway.
The phrase that is uttered utterly automatically is the bottom level of pause control. One up, but only just, is the semi-conscious automatic response. An example is that of the father of the odious Titmus in John Mortimer's 'Paradise Lost'. When presented with his evening meal, which probably had little variation and little flavour, he always expressed 'Tasty, very tasty' as he tucked the first mouthful away.
In the same manner a man, now dead but dear to me, always used to say 'I have an elegance of sufficiency' when asked whether he had eaten enough instead of giving some cryptic response like 'yes, thank you' or 'I'm as full as a goog'.
Politicians who have to deflect offensive questioning use the semi automatic response frequently. Their answers rapidly become tattered outworn cliches.
Examples abound: 'Up and down the country', 'The pound in your pocket', 'Lower/higher than the rest of Europe', 'fatally flawed'.
These cliches rapidly become part of common parlance as their repeated use drills them into the speech patterns of the masses. In time their original meaning is forgotten, the words are modified so that they become unrecognisable. This is particularly so in the mild oath department e.g.'Strewth for God's truth.
The ironic joke is that the mutant words find their way into the dictionary to become quasi respectable.
No doubt some years from now the moronic chants of football crowds will mingle with the impossibly cantilevered phrases of Prime Minister Major on the pages of the Concise Oxford and Websters.
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