Americans say: “There are three things you never address at a cocktail party: sex, politics, and religion.” All three are perceived as private or overly controversial for an occasion like a cocktail party, as a metaphor for information interactions.
Discussion of religion and politics could make some people feel that you are either in agreement with them or opposed, feelings which could provoke tense conversations. Discussing sports, weather and family are considered to be safe topics with which to begin a conversation.
Political correctness language (also known as PC) aims to avoid any form of descrimination or perceived discrimination against social, economic or political groups defined by race, gender, religion, ethnicity, age, disability or sexual orientation.
See gender-neutral terms such as firefighter in the place fireman and firewoman, police officer in place of policeman and policewoman; value-free terms describing physical disabilities, such as visually impaired in place of blind and hearing impaired in place of deaf; value-free cultural terms, such as Holiday season and Winter holiday, in place of Christmas.
Big talk can come in the shape of small talk. A seemingly insignificant conversation can involve important information. One person would like to address important, even sensitive, topics without addressing them directly.
The hope is that the other party will respond accordingly, thus enabling the conversation to transition from small to big talk. In some cases, however, it is the intent of the one party to gain valuable information without the other party aware that they are divulging it.
Surreptitious: kept secret, especially because it would not be approved of. From Latin surreptitius: secretly and seize.
Sneaky: furtive, sly, reluctant.
Wily: skilled at gaining an advantage, especially deceitfully.
Clever: quick to understand, learn, and devise or apply ideas; intelligence. Derived from Middle English perhaps of Dutch or Low German origin. In the late 16th century, the term came to mean manually skillful. The sense of possessing mental agility dates to the early 1700s.
Small talk is so important to American culture that it often appears in American science fiction, usually in the form of an alien species (or other non-human) refusing to use it or having difficulty understanding it.
In the American television show Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lieutenant Commander Data, an android, makes several attempts to master the skill, usually with disastrous (or at least comical) results. In one particular episode, he writes an algorithm for small talk, and then annoys many of the members of the Enterprise crew by attempting to engage them in conversations that are a little too non-relevant even for small talk.
Other species’ lack of small talk also caused discomfort among the humans in the various Star Trek incarnations. In Star Trek: Voyager, Tuvok, a Vulcan, refused to participate in small talk, and when asked to participate, stated that Vulcans do not make small talk. Also on Voyager, the Doctor (a hologram), often commented that he was not programmed to make small talk, saying such things as Small talk only compromises my performance.
However, it wasn’t long before the Doctor changed his opinion about the social behavior, and soon he was even teaching Seven of Nine (a former human turned Borg then turned human again) how to use small talk, telling her that it was “a vital … skill (that) helps to establish a rapport.”
In his post on Forbes online – Six Reasons Small Talk Is Very Important and How To Get Better At It – Brett Nelson writes:
„Whether getting a job, working with colleagues, winning new clients, entertaining existing ones, all of it requires small talk. You better have the gift of gab.“
He then quotes from How To Get A Job On Wall Street, written by Scott Hoover, Associate Professor of Finance at Washington and Lee University: “In trying to generate business, the deal pitch is obviously critical. What is not so obvious is that simple, seemingly innocuous conversation with potential clients can be just as important. Companies want to hire people who can think on their feet.”
MerriamWebster defines gab as: to talk a lot in an informal way usually about things that are not important or serious; to talk in a rapid or thoughtless manner. First know use 1786. Synonyms: babble, blab, cackle, chatter, chat, jabber, rattle, run on, schmooze, talk, twitter.
MerriamWebster tells us that small talk is: informal, friendly conversation about unimportant topics. It is light, casual conversation. „They made small talk while waiting for the meeting to start.“
Or „At the corporate get-together we made the obligatory small talk with some people from the home office.“ First known use 1751. Synonyms: backchat, cackle, chatter, chitchat, gab, gossop, natter, palaver, table talk.
Facebook. The world’s largest social media space. Small talk on a global scale. A business model. Quintessentially American.
In his book Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion, American psychology and marketing professor Robert Beno Cialdini lists likability as one of the 6 key principles of influence.
And a way to get people to like you, Cialdini argues, is to “rapidly seek out commonalities” with that person. Moreover, the connection doesn’t have to be unique or meaningful – a shared interest in sports or a similar vacation location are both sufficient to help make someone like you.
Small talk allows people to find commonalities quickly, and thus to have influence over each other right from the beginning.
In Old English, thou/thee were used to address a single person, while ye/you were used to address more than one person. However, as English developed, the terms ye and you were used to politely address a single person – first the king, then other high born nobility and the clergy, and eventually anyone at or above a person’s social status.
By the end of the 16th century, the word ye had virtually disappeared from daily speech, and the term you was quickly replacing the term thou.
As Early Modern English began, the word thou became associated with emotions, rather than number or hierarchy, and most people would only use thou if they were angry or in love. Ironically, these days people very rarely use the informal thou to indicate formality or to sound more archaic: “Thou shallt not lie.”
One way that Americans move quickly from small to big talk is holding events centered around a common theme. These themes can be anything from the Information in Engineering Conference to MerCon (a mermaid-themed conference). At these conferences, it’s customary for people to only use a little small talk, then quickly segue into big talk based on the conference theme.
One of the best known examples of one of these events is Comic Con.
The first Comic Con was held in San Diego in 1970, when a group of comic and science fiction fans decided to showcase some of their favorite comic books and other forms of popular art.
The one day event was such a large success, attracting about 100 people, that its founders decided to throw a three day convention later that year (which attracted over 300 people).
Over the decades, Comic Cons have become so popular that they can be found all over the world, and some of the bigger events can have more than 200,000 people in attendance.