"DON'T YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW, YOUKNOWYOUKNOW...!"

"DON’T YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW, YOUKNOWYOUKNOW...!"

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© February 8, 2009

“The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women is owning to a scarcity of matter and a scarcity of words, for whoever is a master of language and has a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of his words.”

Jonathan Swift (1667 –1745), Irish satirist, Dean of St. Patrick’s, author of “Gulliver’s Travels.”

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I’ve made an unscientific study of people whom we often see and hear speaking through our television screen. They are people in the news, people of reputation, people who have had the luxury of affluence, a good education, and the reinforcement of believing themselves if not special well above average, people who we come to claim are our leaders, our heroes, and our – in this murky times of ours – change makers and change masters.

As I’ve indicated, I’ve made a very unscientific study of these faces that pour out of the television screen being interviewed by other people of equal or greater fame because they control the microphone, people, too, who have had the advantages of our culture to be all that they could be.

Before I did this very unscientific study of these faces that pour out of the television screen, I said to myself, why are you so irritated? What right do you have to disparage their celebrity, their accomplishment, and their stature? If you don’t like it, you can lump it, so why don’t you lump it? I thought long and hard about this because that voice within me has a definite point. Who am I to judge?

Well, about that time I found myself getting a little angry, because I should confess anger is my prime motivator, not money, not pride, not possessions, not anything you can think of but raw unadulterated anger. Why? Or better yet what is the basis of my anger?

It is because I want to hear what they have to say and what they have to say may have importance to me, personally, and contribute to my better understanding of the world they dominate, and possibly control, because if that is true, and I have little doubt that it is, then it affects me.

What is my point? See, you lack patience. I’ve discovered rather than wanting me to explain the context of the signatory phrase I am about to allude to, you would press me to get on with it, to get to the content of this piece. You would have me lay out naked, and assume, now that is an important word, assume, that I the listener are privy to something that may be of interest to you. I will say only at this point that the signatory phrase is repeated ad infinitum ad nauseam.

What is this phrase? Well, in my unscientific survey reflecting the faces on my television screen then listening to people in supermarkets, shopping malls, people talking on the street as I walk through my neighborhood interrupting my speaking into my cassette recorder, listening to people in conversation as I have my coffee at MacDonald’s, and then of course listening to members of my own family.

The phrase is a variation of “don’t you know,” which of course I don’t and I am certain I am never to be told. It is assumed I know.

Now, in my very unscientific study, I have concluded that people born in the 1930s, who didn’t have the luxury of flippant speech much less few if any luxuries at all, never were provided with this extravagance. You can go into the foothills of Tennessee, the backwaters of the Missouri, the rolling river towns along the Mississippi, the Blue Hills of Virginia and many other places too many to mention, and people born in the 1930s had no choice but to say what they meant and mean what they said without the comfort of “don’t you know.”

Now, people born in the 1940s and 1950s, people like former President Bill Clinton, and now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and others of their generation, especially those who had the luxury of attending our great universities of the East and Far West, abbreviated this “don’t you know” to a clipped “you know.”

I would imagine those people holding the television microphones interviewing people of all generations, by the accident of their birth, having been born in the 1940s and 1950s, had to have verbal surgery to correct their speech to excise this abbreviated “you know.”

Yet, as life is determined by its nature to be what it is rather than what it prefers to be, they have slips, not measured slips, but slips nonetheless. I’ve heard “you know” in the speech of the most photogenic Brian Williams, and in his mentor, the venerated Tom Brokaw. This signatory phrase becomes a parody of perplexity when they are interviewing someone who cannot say three words without “you know” as they combat the speaker with their own “you know.” Perhaps that is because the verbal surgery was not totally successful.

Again, admitting my very unscientific survey cannot be taken seriously, I must register my disappointment bordering on disbelief of those born in the 1960s and 1970s, and now joining them, those born in the 1980s who grace the television screen from academia to Hollywood, from Wall Street to Washington, from amateur to professional sport, from low to high income neighborhoods to the whole face of our public humanity. “Don’t you know” has progressed to “You know” to YouKnowYouKnow….”

Vice President nominee, the much maligned Governor Sarah Palin, has used the “You Know,” but so has her running mate, Senator John McCain, who would add to the confusion as to what he means by a constant “my friends. “ God be my witness, this is also true of the most eloquent of all speakers, our own President Barak Obama. Can you imagine Lincoln hyphenating his speech with “you know” or “don’t you know?” Neither can I?

Perhaps it is cultural, or cool, or a way to break speech like bread with us to suggest the common clothe. No, I don’t think so. I think it is generational, addictive, and most concerning of all, an impossible speech virus with no ready antidote in sight.

The first time I heard Caroline Kennedy speak on her interest in replacing Senator Hillary Clinton’s New York Senate seat, she said so many “YouKnowYouKnowYouKnows” that I lost track at 32, and she couldn’t have said more than 300 words or so. Again, I apologize for the lack of the science to my survey.

Than I heard Robert Wood, Press Secretary of the State Department, give what occurred to me a slightly modified rendition of “youknow.” It was so quiet as to be almost imperceptible. This was also true of Michael Phelps in his public apology for smoking a bong, which I believe is marijuana. It would seem professional athletes must take a course in “youknowyouknowyouknow,” as they seemingly are the most adept at the signatory phrase.

Is this a nervous tick or is it symptomatic of a tired sluggish and indolent culture? Is speech the first indicator that our society is dying?

I noticed it appears more frequently when the person is lying, has no idea what to say, hasn’t done his or her homework, is pissed off, or is having an especially bad day.

I was born in the 1930s, and envied these people for the longest time. There was a certain eloquence when the speaker would pause, and say, “Don’t you know.” I didn’t know, had no idea, but thought it was something I missed along with other luxuries in my struggle to grow up with scarcity. Now, I’m not sure. There is a dark side to me I must admit, and my judgment might be quite impaired for it but I’ve come to the conclusion that Shakespeare has it about right, “What a spendthrift he is of his tongue.”

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