Psittacism

Psittacism (pronounced sit-uh-siz-uh-m)

(1) Speech or writing that appears mechanical or repetitive in the manner of a parrot.

(2) A pejorative description of the use of words which appear to have been used mechanically, without understanding; mere parroting; repetition without reasoning.

1861: From the French psittacisme or the German psittazismus, both from Latin psittaci (parrot), an inflection of psittacus, from the Ancient Greek ψιττακός (psittakós) of unknown origin although presumed to come from a non-Greek source.  The construct was thus psittac(i) + -ism (ie “parrotism”).  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  The use in English appears seems to have been rare until the 1880s and even now is limited often political science or works in the various fields of critical theory.  An alternative word is the verb “parroting”.  Psittacism & psittaceous are nouns and psittacistic is an adjective; the noun plural is psittacisms.  The temping adverb psittacistically is not listed as a standard form.

Psittacism is speech or writing that appears mechanical or repetitive in the manner of a parrot which can be taught to recite phrases in human speech but without any knowledge of their meaning.  The author Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) noted this parrot-like behaviour when meeting Pope Pius XII (1876-1958; pope 1939-1958).  The pope spoke Italian, Latin & French, was fluent in German (he’d been a diplomat there for thirteen years) and during his pontificate, it was reported he’d added Russian, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish and Dutch, all of which were displayed whenever he would have audiences with anyone from those countries.  However, most of these multi-lingual flourishes appear to have been set-piece scripts because as Waugh observed: “The sad thing about the Pope is that he loves talking English and has learned several elegant little speeches by heart parrotwise and delivers them with practically no accent, but he does not understand a word of the language.”  Apparently, the pontiff was “relieved when Waugh began to speak in French”.

Usually though, psittacism is used to describe either the banalities which litter conversations conducted for reasons of politeness rather than genuine interest or the “buzzwords” of management such as “Thinking outside the box” or “synergies”.  In politics too, phrases like “Make America great again” or “Continuity with change” are psittacistic, as is a significant volume of what appears on pop-culture platforms such as TikTok or Instagram.  Psittacisms though do differ for “filler words” such as the traditional “um”, “ah” and “you know” which are “gap fillers” in conversational flow; in structural linguistics, filler words are known as vocal disfluencies (filling in hesitations).  The growth in the use of “like” (meaning “said” or “did”) in recent decades differs in that it is a genuine addition to the norms of English expression (at least among certain classes) and the frequent disapproval of its use seems to have had little effect.  In some cases, oft-repeated phrases such as “left-wing” or “moderate” may no longer convey an accurate meaning (although they continue to be parroted) but such are not psittacisms because they are used with the intent to convey meaning; they are often merely misleading. 

In literature, it’s not uncommon to co-opt the birds as literary devices; Gustave Flaubert's (1821–1880) parrot in Un Coeur Simple (A Simple Heart (1877)) said to represent the bourgeoisie who repeat their psittaceous banalities without thought.  Those who are more interested in French society than their inner selves or the relationship a troubled genius had with his mother will prefer Flaubert to Proust.  Marcel Proust’s (1871-1922) thirteen novel set À la recherche du temps perdu (1913–1927) (In English translated originally as “Remembrance of Things Past” and of late as “In Search of Lost Time”) is a work like no other and should be read but most will find Flaubert more fun.  On the subject of (now dated) fun, although unrelated to the etymology of psittacism, the silent “P” is a footnote in English literature, Rupert Psmith (later Ronald Eustace Psmith) one of the roll-call of characters who appear in a number of novels by PG Wodehouse (1881-1975).  The surname Psmith was pronounced as “Smith” (“as in pshrimp” the character’s helpful explanation) and was self-appended just to make him seem “a cut above all the many other Smiths”.

Psittacism, tautology & plagiarism

A pair of Scarlett Macaw parrots.

The sin of psittacism differs from that of tautology or plagiarism.  Tautology is the use of extraneous words needlessly to repeat an idea (eg “completely, totally and utterly beyond my comprehension and understanding”) or the use of words which impart no additional force or clarity (eg “female schoolgirl” (although perhaps now the modifier may be a good idea)).  Plagiarism (examples of which are littered throughout this blog), is an act or instance of using or closely imitating the text (and text can be melody, image and such) or ideas of another without attribution or authorization, the worst cases of which being those where there’s a representation (overtly or by implication) the material is original.  That latter part applies not to this blog, written as it is by someone who has never in their life has an original thought.  Although controversial even when blatant or obvious (eg Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) “borrowing” parts of a speech from Neil Kinnock (b 1942; Leader of the UK Labour Party from 1983-1992)), in academia there genuinely are gray areas.  Does rephrasing a paragraph or two to re-express things already well-known constitute plagiarism or is it merely a review of what’s out there?  One would expect a president of Harvard University to be able to explain the concept but not all are convinced of that.  The act can also be blatant but if what’s reproduced is so well-known as to be notorious (eg William Shakespeare's (1564–1616) “to be or not to be” fragment from Hamlet (1603)), there’s never going to be a suggestion it was plagiarised.

What’s alleged to be our increasingly psittacistic world may in part be technologically deterministic.  There was a time when every printed word was precious because there was a cost to printing every letter and verbosity does seem to increase as costs fall; compare the punchy brevity of an old telegram when every letter came at a cost with the profligacy of E-mail messages.  The trend towards increasing volumes of text, apparent already in the post-war years, accelerated exponentially as soon as distribution became disconnected from physically printed paper.  Impressionistically, the psittacistic does seem now more prevalent but the volumes of all text and many tendencies have increased so much we may be deceived by our own prejudices.