Hillary's "sigh"
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Eric Garland of The Hill shares a video of Hillary Clinton at a June 22 campaign appearance in North Carolina, and it provides ammunition for those who would like to portray her as a soulless automaton vainly trying to seem like an authentic human being.
https://vine.co/v/5zdrHezXlbV
In Garland's item for The Hill, he took Clinton to task for "reading 'sigh' off the teleprompter rather than actually sighing," though he admitted "it's unclear whether Clinton intentionally read the word or whether 'sigh' was actually a cue for her to sigh audibly." Just to encourage the idea that this was some sort of ludicrous faux pas, the post's slug line is "teleprompter-gaffe-flub-oops-blunder-hillary-clinton-sigh."
Meanwhile, the same day as Hillary's North Carolina stop, Donald Trump gave a speech in New York using a teleprompter, a contrast to his usual off-the-cuff speaking style. Trump's performance generated some teleprompter humor too.
Trump is so bad on the teleprompter, I'm just waiting for him to say, "hold for applause."
— Erik B (@erikbransteen) June 22, 2016
Both Clinton and Trump are falling prey to an old comedic trope: "Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud," as the ever-reliable TVTropes site calls it. And in Clinton's case, it overlaps with another trope, "Saying Sound Effects Out Loud." TVTropes lists lots of examples from TV, movies, and other media, including verbalized "sighs," "coughs," and "yawns."
So was Clinton's "sigh," even if it was on the teleprompter, really the gaffe/flub/oops/blunder that The Hill would like us to think it was? Using "sigh" as an arch interjection isn't all that unusual in real-life contexts, even if it tends to appear in written rather than spoken English. The major dictionaries don't seem to have caught up with interjectional "sigh," though Wiktionary has it covered with this definition: "An expression of fatigue, exhaustion, grief, sorrow, frustration, or the like, often used in casual written contexts." Example: "Sigh, I'm so bored at work today."
This is all reminiscent of a phenomenon I wrote about in a post a few years ago, "The cyberpragmatics of bounding asterisks." As I discussed there, bounding asterisks (and sometimes other characters) have come to indicate "autonomous stage directions" in online communication, to use a term introduced by Francisco Yus. (Think of *scribbles furiously*, *golf clap*, etc.) I looked at how bounding asterisks may have their roots in comic-strip representations of expressive non-verbal noises, like Charlie Brown's *sigh* in Peanuts:
So perhaps the style of writing out *sigh*/*cough*/*yawn* in comic strips helped to encourage the use of these words as playful interjections in other discursive contexts, both written and spoken. Clinton's usage certainly seemed playful to me, a kind of "whaddyagonnado" reaction to Trump's insinuations about her Methodist faith:
"So all he can do is try to distract us. That’s even why he’s attacking my faith. Sigh."
I wouldn't be surprised if Hillary read a lot of Peanuts growing up.
Mary Kuhner said,
July 1, 2016 @ 10:45 pm
My family says "sigh" all the time. I did get called on it once as a kid, but I still say it frequently. Also "quote unquote", which my husband has caught from me.
I'll go out on a limb and say this isn't teleprompter, just idiolect.
jhh said,
July 1, 2016 @ 11:12 pm
I am anything *but* a supporter of Hillary. Even so, this spoken "sigh" sounds like what a good number of my academic colleagues (mostly women?) say on a daily basis.
Gregory Kusnick said,
July 1, 2016 @ 11:15 pm
I can attest from personal experience that *sigh* was common in email communications at Xerox PARC in the 1970s, as was the use of "sigh" and "mumble" in spoken conversation in place of actual sighs and mumbles.
Bob Ladd said,
July 2, 2016 @ 12:58 am
It may or may not be relevant that both SIGH and GULP are used – untranslated – in Italian comic books, and are sometimes used jocularly in speech (pronounced [sig] and [gulp], of course). I'd say that's the equivalent of what Hilary was doing.
Martin Grimshaw said,
July 2, 2016 @ 2:40 am
My favourite was *choke* from the old EC comics. Usually uttered in the final panel when the
chief protagonist had just experienced a suitably grisly denouement.
Pflaumbaum said,
July 2, 2016 @ 3:11 am
This is somehow reminiscent of the hilarious dual-language cock-ups where bits of surrounding rubric like "continued overleaf" get incorporated into the copy.
Couple of similar examples below, though not quite what I mean:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=787
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=301
Ian said,
July 2, 2016 @ 5:06 am
The UK's beleagured Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, did something similar early in hus tenrue, when he voiced the phrase "strong message here" as a part of a conference speech:
https://youtu.be/M_yrQ4YTbuQ
Stan Carey said,
July 2, 2016 @ 5:27 am
This reminds me of a charming letter from a six-year-old to her mother that was posted on Passive-Aggressive Notes a few years ago. Though glossed as "(sigh)", the letter renders it as "hhhh", which is probably my favourite ever transcription of a sigh.
Elliott Hoey said,
July 2, 2016 @ 5:54 am
I wrote a paper on actual instances of sighing in interaction: https://www.academia.edu/7216924/Sighing_in_interaction_Somatic_semiotic_and_social
This one seems perhaps artificial, but not in the canny or deceptive sense. Rather, the length of time from the moment she takes a recognizable in-breath, to the time she moves toward producing the word "sigh", seems like an adequate pause length for her to reconsider whether she would go with the actual expiration of air, or with the verbalized "sigh".
Ray said,
July 2, 2016 @ 8:08 am
I’m guessing that, in a speech for a large crowd, saying the word “sigh” out loud was intentional, and more effective than simply sighing, but the fact that it was read from a teleprompter is what gave hillary the appearance of scripted phoniness (and maybe the fact that she actually looked like she was going to sigh at first, but then switched to saying “sigh” adds to the impression of a stilted performance…)
the comic strip use of bounding asterisks reminds me of how we often use bounding html tags to describe stage directions in online contexts. even further, the content itself (like “sigh” or “cough” or “yawn”) can be used as bounding html tags… kind of like xml (extensible markup language)!
another way our online style of communication seeps into our spoken world is when we hear people actually say “el oh el” or “oh em gee”
===Dan said,
July 2, 2016 @ 10:38 am
I was surprised to see (scoffs) in the closed captions the first one or two times.
unidentified linguist said,
July 2, 2016 @ 11:13 am
Re Gregory Kusnick’s comment above: My friends and I have also written *sigh* in email (but using angled brackets) for decades. The conversational speech version consciously indexes the email usage. I wouldn’t have thought of comics offhand, but that’s a very interesting observation.
I’m also familiar with *snort* written in email, and translated in conversation to the actual sound of snorting — recalling Roseanne Rosannadanna. Imagine if Hillary had let loose and snorted. Hard to see how that could’ve been spun as robotic, SNORT.
Victor Mair said,
July 2, 2016 @ 11:38 am
The concatenation between Mark's preceding post on "That false and senseless Way of Speaking" and this post by Ben is striking.
Victor Mair said,
July 2, 2016 @ 11:48 am
I've often wondered how one would onomatopoeically transcribe the sound of a sigh. I'm pretty sure that I first thought about this long ago when I read Charlie Brown's "*sigh*" in Peanuts. Would anyone care to take a stab at it?
Mike E. said,
July 2, 2016 @ 2:56 pm
I suppose she doesn't say LOL or O-M-G.
In German, the uninflected form that is used between asterisks is sometimes known as the Erikativ, after Erika Fuchs, who translated the Donald Duck cartoons into German.
Stephen said,
July 2, 2016 @ 5:55 pm
I verbalize "sigh" as "sigh" all the time. So does my son. Definitely Peanuts influenced.
Stephen said,
July 2, 2016 @ 5:58 pm
That wasn't very clear. I mean I say the word "sigh" a lot instead of actually sighing. There. How's that?
Aaron said,
July 2, 2016 @ 7:54 pm
I use the word "sigh" in place of a sigh pretty regularly in English, and a couple of times I've even caught myself saying "soupir" in place of a sigh when speaking French. I'm not sure if francophones typically do that, though my interlocutors seemed to understand what I was trying to convey at the time.
AntC said,
July 2, 2016 @ 8:02 pm
Reading out stage directions was a point of high humour in The Goon Shows.
Waits for applause: not a sausage.
Sound of being hit by a sock full of cold custard.
I would have loved to be in the audience at a live run. From clips on YouTube, the sound FX guy had an almost-impossible job.
Jonathan Dushoff said,
July 2, 2016 @ 11:08 pm
There's a story from the book Who Runs Congress (which I don't have to hand) about a US legislator (Sen. Strom Thurmond?) who asked a witness a question, and then without waiting for an answer, said something like, "if the witness answers yes, ask him why …"
Weltanschauung said,
July 3, 2016 @ 8:45 am
I know people who, when they realize that a joke has just been told, say "That's funny" in an appreciative tone.
Ray said,
July 3, 2016 @ 9:41 am
Victor wrote: "I've often wondered how one would onomatopoeically transcribe the sound of a sigh…. Would anyone care to take a stab at it?"
among my friends, we'll say "oy vey", but we'll aspirate the oy and turn the vey into a breathy, trailing vehhh, (all of which requires an intake of breath to set it up), so that ultimately oy vey becomes a dramatic sigh of resignation: "hoyv, there she goes again…"
Jerry Friedman said,
July 3, 2016 @ 10:38 am
===Dan: I was surprised to see (scoffs) in the closed captions the first one or two times.
So was I. I don't think the dictionaries have caught up. I'd have transcribed that sound "(snorts)" or in some cases "hmph".
Weltanschauung: I know people who, when they realize that a joke has just been told, say "That's funny" in an appreciative tone.
I've heard that a lot. I take it to mean they didn't find the joke funny.
Victor Mair: I've often wondered how one would onomatopoeically transcribe the sound of a sigh. I'm pretty sure that I first thought about this long ago when I read Charlie Brown's "*sigh*" in Peanuts. Would anyone care to take a stab at it?
Did you see Stan Carey's mention of a six-year-old's attempt, "hhhh"?
peterv said,
July 3, 2016 @ 12:14 pm
@weltanshauung:
In my experience, an explicit utterance of "That is funny" in response to some earlier statement is almost invariably an indication that the speaker did not find the earlier statement amusing. If they had found it funny, they would have laughed at it.
Morgan said,
July 3, 2016 @ 6:49 pm
I think the aspirated "oy vey" is quite close to what I've heard (non-Jewish, relatively non-Yiddish-influenced) acquaintances vocalize in place of "sigh".
WRT "that's funny", the intended meaning depends on whether it's preceded by an actual chuckle or not.
Zizoz said,
July 3, 2016 @ 11:44 pm
I've sometimes said "lol" (pronounced /lol/) out loud when I found something funny but not enough to cause laughter.
Chas Belov said,
July 4, 2016 @ 1:43 am
@Ray: re: "how we often use bounding html tags to describe stage directions in online contexts" do you mean like (followed by rant) ? Re: "another way our online style of communication seeps into our spoken world is when we hear people actually say 'el oh el' or 'oh em gee'" Actually, I say occasionally say "lol, or "oh em gee."
As for reading stage directions out loud, Tarrell Alvin McCraney intentionally included them in the Brother/Sister plays. A reviewer opined that it was an African-American thing but in an interview McCraney revealed his intent to be Brechtian, to remind the audience that they were watching a theatrical performance.
Chas Belov said,
July 4, 2016 @ 1:45 am
Oops, that didn't come through right. Let's try again.
@Ray: re: "how we often use bounding html tags to describe stage directions in online contexts" do you mean like <flame on> (followed by rant) <flame off>? Re: "another way our online style of communication seeps into our spoken world is when we hear people actually say 'el oh el' or 'oh em gee'" Actually, I say occasionally say "lol, or "oh em gee."
As for reading stage directions out loud, Tarrell Alvin McCraney intentionally included them in the Brother/Sister plays. A reviewer opined that it was an African-American thing but in an interview McCraney revealed his intent to be Brechtian, to remind the audience that they were watching a theatrical performance.
Edith T said,
July 4, 2016 @ 5:50 am
Huh. Interesting. In Romanian we use 'of' to indicate sighing in writing, but it is often used in speech as well (with or without an actual sigh). 'Of' is also a noun, but unlike in English where 'a sigh' refers to the act of sighing itself, in Romanian it denotes a worry, an issue, a problem – in other words the cause for the sigh. Telling someone your 'of' is how one might colloquially describe what goes on inside a therapist's room, for example. I wonder which languages have an equivalent for this (and if not, why not)
Ray said,
July 4, 2016 @ 9:25 am
@Chas – yes, and the tagging can be rendered in different, shorthanded ways (that aren't strictly html). like:
<flame>your tie is crooked</flame>
your tie is crooked</flame>
your tie is crooked /flame
and the words used as tags don't always have to be descriptive of the tagged content, but can be additional content that's descriptive of the speaker:
<fainting>your tie is crooked</fainting>
<cough>your tie is crooked</cough>
your tie is crooked</sigh>
etc.
GH said,
July 4, 2016 @ 11:31 am
American comic books tend to use a slightly different pair of symbols: three (or sometimes more) lines radiating out on each side of the interjection (sort of like ">sigh<"). These are known as "breath marks", "crow's feet" or "roach legs", among other names.
History of breath marks in comics
Grammar of comics lettering
Schultz's version also resembles – no doubt by coincidence – a symbol used in manga (i.e. Japanese comics) to indicate anger or strong emotion: usually placed on or in the vicinity of a character's forehead, it derives from a stylized representation of throbbing veins.
stepped pyramids said,
July 4, 2016 @ 4:08 pm
A dramatic/exasperated spoken "sigh" is completely unremarkable around the nexus of young, nerdy, and female, which is probably a fair description of many of Clinton's speechwriters and advisers. It comes off a little stiff here, because it's not really natural in this context.
What's being expressed is kind of an exaggerated mock frustration at something that is somewhat annoying. It can be used just about a situation: "oh crap, I left my phone in my car… SIGH…" Or it can be used in a catty way: "she left her phone in her car again? SIGH…" And it can even be used in a playful faux-catty way: "fine, you can take a bite of my ice cream… SIGH… the things I do for my friends… etc…"
In this case, what the speechwriter was going for was a kind of "not this shit again", "whaddya expect" kind of deal. Clinton definitely knew that, because she sets it up with her body language — a deep breath and a little shrug. It's consistent with the Clinton campaign's general tendency to slightly awkwardly embrace youth culture.
艾力·黑膠（Eric） said,
July 8, 2016 @ 5:47 pm
@Bob Ladd:
I once read—actually, I believe in the very pages of this esteemed journal—that, due to the phonotactic constraints of Italian, sigh was actually much more likely to be realized something closer to sighi (/'siɡi/).
艾力·黑膠（Eric） said,
July 8, 2016 @ 5:50 pm
@Bob Ladd:
I once read—actually, I believe in the very pages of this esteemed journal—that, due to the phonotactic constraint on final consonants in Italian, sigh was actually much more likely to be realized something closer to sighi (/'siɡi/).
Christian Saunders said,
July 11, 2016 @ 8:22 am
This is nothing compared to the Spanish prime minister Rajoy, who read aloud the line "end of quotation" 8 times in front of hundreds of politicians. Video here: https://youtu.be/KL9N0Yxwl1U