Two facts well-known to linguists for many years are that Ancient Greek orthography represented speech
much more closely than does modern English orthography, or practically any other modern European orthography,
and that speech, unlike writing, is full of hesitations, false starts, and meaningless expletive utterances
which are not recorded in writing. For instance, In English, a typical spoken text might be:
- Well, it’s the, umm... you know, the one that, uh, you got from the store across the street.
Of course, expletives can be inserted at many points during one speech utterance, and may be iterated at any
of these points, as seen in above. In fact, sometimes so many expletives are used that the entire communicative
function of speech fails. Consider this example taken from the Watergate tape transcripts submitted by the Nixon
White House to the independent counsel. The conversants are discussing the advisabilityof paying hush money to
the burglars.
- NIXON: But then we’d have a problem with the...with the...
- HALDEMAN: Umm, yeah, umm...
- MITCHELL: Ahh, what, ah...what about...ah, the...?
- NIXON: ...with the...with the...
- DEAN: Only, the question is, you know, umm, how much...
- MITCHELL: That is, if, that is, you know—
- NIXON: ...with the...with the...
- DEAN: ...I mean, um, how much...
- HALDEMAN: Umm, yeah, um...
- ERLICHMAN: What?
- NIXON: Huh?
- MITCHELL AND DEAN (SIMULTANEOUSLY): What?
- HALDEMAN AND NIXON (SIMULTANEOUSLY): What?
- ERLICHMAN: Huh?
- NIXON AND MITCHELL (SIMULTANEOUSLY): (Expletive deleted)
- DEAN: Oh.
Greek Particles
No word of God is without power