Communication Saps -- New for Knoxville Voice

This is already up at www.knoxvoice.com/arts/funny-ha-ha/ but you should check out the other stories there too, particularly the lengthy series of profiles of folks running in county races by Lisa Slade.

 

Communication Saps

The Mary something something factor

by Scott McNutt

Somewhere I still have an old B.C. cartoon I clipped from the newspaper decades ago. It’s a simple gag. Two cavemen are sitting on opposite sides of a boulder. One is examining a jagged mark on the back of his hand.

First panel: "I got a scratch!" he proclaims.

Second panel: "So scratch!" retorts the other.

Third panel: With a bemused expression, the first caveman gazes out of the panel and thinks, "Language is a stupid form of communication."

I refer to this comic exchange because my wife Dana and I share a very special form of communication. It’s not quite stupid, but it has severe quirks. "Oblique," you might call it. Or "obtuse."

The other night we were watching a rerun of Law & Order: SVU. Dana recognized a guest star, and I swear this re-creation of the ensuing conversation is not exaggerated.

"Who’s that actress?" Dana said.

"I can’t quite remember. Her name’s Mary something something," I replied. "Let’s see, Mary something something was in The Big Chill…"

Dana: "You think this actress was in The Big Chill?"

Me: "No, no. I’m just trying to run through actresses named Mary something something. Mary Beth Hurt?"

Dana: "You think that’s Mary Beth Hurt?"

Me: "No, I think Mary Beth Hurt was in The Big Chill."

Dana: "Mary Beth Hurt was Garp’s wife."

Me: "Is that her?"

Dana: "The Mary in The Big Chill?"

Me: "No, no, no. Is Mary Beth Hurt that actress there?"

Dana: "What? No, not her. Mary something something was on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman."

Me: "The actress on TV was on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman?"

Dana: "No, Mary Kay Place was on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. There was a Mary something something in a movie with an actor, he’s done a lot of things, he does, he does…"

Me: "That’s not Mary Kay Place."

Dana: "No, Mary Kay Place was the Mary something something in The Big Chill, and she was on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Oh!Those Lowe’s commercials, he does the voiceovers for them-"

Me: "You think Mary Kay Place does the voiceovers for Lowe’s?"

Dana: "No, he’s-"

Me: "He who? Are we still talking about that actress?"

Dana: "Yes, I’m trying to remember Mary something something actresses. He does the voiceovers for Lowe’s, and she was his daughter-"

Me: "She’s the daughter of the guy who does the Lowe’s commercials?"

Dana: "No, she played his daughter in a lawyer movie. And she was in that pool movie with that other actor and the young actor. She was the young actor’s girlfriend and the older actor’s daughter or something."

Me: "Well, that was Gene Hackman in the lawyer movie."

Dana: "Yes! Gene Hackman! She was in that movie with him."

Me, scoffing: "Yes, and she was in The Color of Money. But that actress on TV was not in those movies. That was-"

Dana: "Yes, I know the actress on TV wasn’t in them, I’m trying to remember the actress in those movies because she’s a Mary something something."

Me: "-that was Mary Elizabeth Muh- muh-"

Dana: "-Mastrantonio. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio!"

Me: "OK, I know she was in the movie with the young guy who was Cher’s kid in that other movie."

Dana: "Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was in a movie with Cher’s kid?"

Me: "No…Mask! It was Mask."

Dana: "Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was not in Mask."

Me: "No, he was in Mask. She was in Some Kind of Wonderful with him."

Dana: "Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was in Some Kind of Wonderful?"

Me: "No, that Mary something something was."

Dana: "Which Mary something something are we talking about?"

Me: "The Mary something something on TV.

Dana: "What about her?"

Me: "She was the Mary something something in the movie."

Dana: "Which movie are we talking about?"

Me: "Some Kind of Wonderful."

Dana, picking up our movie review book: "Oh. Why didn’t you say so?"

Me: "I only remembered by going through the Mary something somethings."

Now, you could parse this exchange to very finite instances of miscommunication, pointing out, for instance, that using a proper name in place of the frequently used pronoun "she" would have cleared up much of the misunderstanding. Or you might simply conclude that we are both pretty stupid, with bad memories to boot. Nonetheless, I bring this up to make an obvious point, that communication is tricky business, but also to serve, however elliptically, as a cautionary note, because the stupid communication season is upon us.

The presidential election campaign is ratcheting up. The candidates will be making 10-cent promises spiffed up in 99-cent words. Candidates for local political offices will be doing the same, albeit at a discounted rate. Soon, all the politicians and all the talking TV babbleheads and all the celebrities and everybody you know, your spouse, your family, your friends, your coworkers, your minister, your son’s little league coach, that annoyingly loud lady who’s always at the salon, that odd little guy who’s always in the grocery store at the same time as you, and even you, will be saying things about these campaigns in stupid ways that can easily be misunderstood.

Dana and I may be slightly less coherent than other average citizens, but I don’t think there’s a huge gap between us. If Dana and I can’t talk clearly about some actress on TV that we don’t even care about, then I can only imagine how badly we’ll communicate when the stupidity of political fervor grips us.

So in this season of overheated political rhetoric, when you’re trying to distinguish between fact and fiction, truth and falsehood, realism and hyperbole, and when emotions are running hot and the chance of your words being taken wrong is high – in essence, when you’re trying to identify and communicate the Mary something something of your political passion – bear this lesson in mind: It was Mary Stuart Masterson.