Pre-empt "American Idol" enough times and Americans will start to critique your vocal performances.
That's the message that President Barack Obama is getting this week, as he draws comic heat for his liberal use of the word "look" in his televised Tuesday night news conference.
Wednesday's "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" show featured a video montage of Mr. Obama saying "look" 26 times during the hour-long news conference -- a gag that Mr. Fallon then spun into a musical remix and a dance routine.
The Pittsburgh-based satire Web site Carbolic Smoke Ball also gave Mr. Obama a prominent "look" yesterday, featuring a made-up story about two friends who succumbed to alcoholism and alcohol poisoning after launching a drinking game based on his use of the word.
Speech tics are nothing new, of course, from "like"-minded Valley Girls to any old stammered "um."
But there's a special place in Americana for the verbal stylings of politicians.
Caroline Kennedy might not have torpedoed her entire senatorial campaign by her prolific use of the phrase "you know" (235 times in 41 minutes, according to the New York Post), but you know it didn't help.
President Richard Nixon is well known for pronouncing "let me make this perfectly clear" and President Ronald Reagan's folksy use of "well" before answering questions from the media earned him many an iconic moment on "Saturday Night Live."
And even our own Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is prone to substituting "myself" for "me" or "I" and to referring to nearly any negative happening as "unfortunate."
From politicians, such words aren't just idle stammers, or stalling techniques. They are often used as shorthand for key personality features, or to set the tone for answers in a news conference.
In academic parlance, the first words to answer a question are known as "turn-initial position," said Manny Schegloff, a sociology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, in that they telegraph the position that will be taken in the upcoming statement.
Research at UCLA has shown, for example, that the word "oh" when used to answer a question tends to signify that the question asked was either unexpected or inappropriate.
When Mr. Reagan would use the term, "well" to start his answer to a question, it wasn't just a space filler, said Steven Clayman, a sociology professor at UCLA who has researched presidential news conferences.
Through that one word, he was essentially saying that he was "about to offer something longer than you expected or somewhat different," said Dr. Clayman.
Though Dr. Schegloff hasn't specifically studied the function of the word "look" or its use by Mr. Obama, he speculated that its function was to advise the listener that he would be providing background information necessary to answer the question.
Through that word, Mr. Obama may really be saying, "I can't give you a simple answer to that question -- I'm going to prepare you for the answer I'm going to give," said Dr. Schegloff.
For an American public accustomed to simple sound bites, being given the command to "look" and listen to supporting information before getting an answer might seem annoying, overly professorial or even condescending.
But, given the subject matter, it might also be the proper tack to take, said Dr. Schegloff.
"Given the complexity of the economic situation we're in," he said. "He's drawing on the very best minds available in economics, there are very few things that [have] a simple answer."
First Published: March 27, 2009, 8:00 a.m.
