There’s an obvious gap in conversational routine and novelty between those who read books and those who don’t. It’s a glaring division in verbal resources. Here’s how to spot someone who doesn’t read:
Their conversation will be filled with recurrent stock words. They will obsessively use redundant expressions that convey no information and are usually illogical. They may overuse expletives which deaden significance the more they are employed. They talk in the form of a short story that you wouldn’t want to read.
If they say “irregardless” as well, just walk away.
Conversations with no literary dimension are static. It’s as boring as someone who wants to discuss the weather. These conversations usually amount to: “When the rain falls, it tends to get damp.” Discussions of the weather are a good sign of illiteracy.
There are other topics that have a deflationary effect on meaning. Traffic: “When traffic is heavy, I tend to be late.” Then you provide details…as if anyone needed them. People who discuss the weather or traffic don’t seem to realize that they are multiplying the same conversation innumerable times. You lose the lottery 20,000 times but you still say: “Maybe next time, I’ll win.”
Illiteracy might be defined as short-term memory loss.
I want to shoot down the objection that conversation can be highly original without being literate. Like you’re a graffiti writer but only with speech. As Matt Arnold says, why would you want to pull yourself out of a larger conversation and talk as if to a hole-in-the-wall?
Literate talk is our contemporary version of Latin. It sets a common standard of excellence that’s universal so that the conversation can go global. Any literate person anywhere in the world can participate and relate to any other literate person. Why develop a private language that only a few can share? You might as well form a lost tribe of indigenous South American natives.
Early summer the Guys had a dinner. JC, JR, DH and Johnny sat around an outdoor table on the west side of Union Square Park. Johnny was talking about sex and love. JR was laughing.
I noticed through the haze of my mint lemonade that Johnny’s conversation was along the lines of his last novel. JE was riffing new material, not in the novel, but just as good as what was in the book. JE steamed the air with his words.
Talk that’s as good as a novel. Or a novel that’s a great conversation. Think of that the next time that you want to bring up the weather!
