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
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 had 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, genuinely there are grey 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.
