Tangled webs

People don't know it, but they have something more than voiceprints that are unique to them when it comes to language. And that something, rather subliminal in nature, is a number. It's not a number assigned to their voiceprints either. It's a mean that comes from dividing their speech into utterance segments of 50 or 100 words (100 is optimal). This mean can stretch across several hours of speech if necessary.

In casual speech, a person's utterances respect the mean, meaning that nearly all the 50 or 100 word segments are within one standard deviation of the mean. But, we don't always respect the mean in our utterances. Sometimes our emotions are aroused. We have moments of heightened awareness. When such an occasion arises, it shows in our speech number. That is, people are aware of their words for one reason or another, so they choose them more carefully. This affects the speech number because then the words spoken don't respect the mean. They trend higher, many times above the 1st standard deviation from the mean, and sometimes above the second deviation from the mean.

And just why would people choose words more carefully when frightened or their status quo threatened? Well, because choosing to tell the truth might incriminate them. At least that is one reason for choosing words carefully. Another is to rehearse a story so that no matter how intense the feelings are in answering questions or having to admit to anything, they can rely on the rehearsed speech with carefully chosen words.

There's a little more to it. The speech number referred to is the type-token ratio. That would be the number of non-duplicated words to the number of duplicated words. Americans start to repeat words, on average, after the 15th word is spoken, words like articles and prepositions or key words that form the basis of ideas. TTRs in 50 or 100 word segments yield an average. So, when a rehearsed speech or a nervous utterance is underway, words don't get duplicated so much.

Neat trick, huh! It's hard to manipulate the TTR. So all you guilty souls out there who are lying your way through some bad habits, you never know when your TTR could just be the culprit that snares you in its net. Sir Walter Scott pegged it 200 years ago in his poem Marmion.

Oh what a tangled web we weave,

When first we practise to deceive.

(Canto vi, Stanza 17)