Verbal tic or strategic rejoinder? Whatever the example: it’s rare to come across an interrogation these days where at least one question isn’t a “great” one.

Listen and follow our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Below is a transcript of the occurrence, revised for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the chapter, experience the links at the bottom of this post.

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Hey there, it’s Stephen Dubner. Some of the Freakonomics Radio episodes we spawn have an agenda. That’s the lawsuit with the one you’re about to hear. We originated it back in 2015 because I’d noticed a disturbing veer in the interrogations we do for this show but too throughout the media, academia, politics, you mentioned it. I was hoping this occurrence would not only call attention to the problem, but help solve it. Well, dear listener, we flunked. We did not solve this problem at all — at least as evidenced by how often I still encounter it. So maybe this time around it’ll work? Hope, “theyre saying”, springtimes eternal. And if there’s anything I have in abundance, it’s hope.

***

We’ve been doing this show for a while now. And I’ve noticed a trend.

ARCHIVAL TAPE MONTAGE: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, that’s a good question. That’s a very good question! So, it’s a great question.

Look, I’m going to be honest with you. Most of the questions we ask? They aren’t truly all that immense. But it’s like there’s a oral tic going around.

ARCHIVAL TAPE MONTAGE: Well, you know, that’s another good question. That’s a really good question. Good question! Great question. Great question. Good question. So, those are good questions.

And you know who has this tic really bad?

Steve LEVITT: You know, that’s a great question.

Yeah, Steve Levitt. You was aware that Steve Levitt is, don’t you?

LEVITT: So, that’s a great question.

Levitt’s my Freakonomics friend and co-author. He’s an economist at the University of Chicago. Levitt, you’ve been at Chicago for quite a while now, haven’t you?

LEVITT: Uh, that’s a good question.

And you seem to think that when it comes to what makes a good question, absolutely no topic is off-limits, wouldn’t you say?

LEVITT: Oh, that’s a good question. Yeah, it is true that people like their cows to have gotten to walk around a lot and gobble fresh grass.

Stephen DUBNER: So, Levitt, do you have any recollection of saying that same quotation about 150 experiences? Is it something you know you’re doing?

LEVITT: That’s a good question.

***

“Hey, that’s a great question! ” I’ve heard this over and over and over the last several years — and not just on our display. You hear it in all kinds of media interviews, during the course of its Q& A portion of tech powwows, academic powwows. But just because I’ve heard it a lot — that doesn’t mean much. We needed professional help.

Arika OKRENT: My name is Arika Okrent. I’m a linguist.

Okrent knows several languages.

OKRENT: I are talking here about six at a terribly, at a faking-it level. So, I can go for a while and have you, have you reassured until you bring up something I’ve never talked about before and then it all falls apart.

For the purpose of this discussion, we’re sticking to English and the utterance we’re discussing today: “That’s a great question.”

OKRENT: I started looking into it. Has it certainly been on the rise?

Okay, so how do you figure this out?

OKRENT: It’s hard to measure that because it’s hard to find a corpus of data that will show spoken language over period that lane. You can’t look for it in Google Books or something because people don’t commonly write this phrase.

But Okrent was able to find a pair big collections of spoken-language data.

OKRENT: One of them is the British National Corpus.

That’s a 100 million-word database, which includes records of daily speech, as well as government sessions, media interrogations, and so on.

OKRENT: And I did a rummage on the term there and it simply registered up 35 times in a corpus of like 100 million words. And a lot of those instances were myth. So it wasn’t too common over there. And then I made a look at the Corpus of Contemporary American English and there it was over a thousand times. And the majority of members of the specimen were interviews on C.N.N. or N.P.R. or different one-on-one interview situations where there was an expert being interviewed about something. So it surely seems to be more of an American thing.

N.P.R .: We’re hearing from chairwomen in the House and the Senate, they both say they want to pass a money by next week. The big question: what happens if they don’t?

N.P.R .: Well that’s a good question and –.

N.P.R .: Does this bump hold water, do you think?

N.P.R .: That’s a good question.

FOX: Well that’s a good question.

C.N.N .: That’s a very good question.

C.N.N .: That’s a very good question.

C.N.N .: Well, you know it’s a good question.

M.S.N.B.C .: Why has that not been enough to get him off of demise row in Texas?

M.S.N.B.C .: This is a really good question.

Okay, and where does Arika Okrent think this habit has come from?

OKRENT: In looking around for it I found that it’s actually an explicit part of media and P.R. training.

Bill McGOWAN: I think it’s still on the rise.

That’s Bill McGowan. He does media and P.R. training for C.E.O.’s, athletes, artists, even the best humankinds at bridals. His company is called Clarity Media Group, and he wrote a record called Pitch Perfect: How to Say It Right the First Time, Every Time. McGowan says that some people say, “That’s a great question” to serve as what’s called a bridge.

McGOWAN: The bridge is what happens when the person interviewing you or asking you questions wants to go down one conversational road.

OKRENT: You use it as a action to go from a potentially dangerous question back to your talking spots, back to the point you just wanted to make.

McGOWAN: You don’t know anything about what lies in that road, or you don’t want to talk about that subject, you have a different conversational superhighway you want to go down, so there is a requirement to a bridge to get from one artery to the other.

OKRENT: “That’s a good question” is one of the mottoes that enables you to do that. You get the question. You say, “That’s a good question.” It buys you a little time. And then you merely jump-start right in with the target you wanted to make and often people don’t notice that you haven’t dealt with the question or responded to the question.

McGOWAN: “That’s a really good question” is the most elementary bridge possible.

Now, when Bill McGowan says it’s “elementary” — he signifies certainly elementary.

McGOWAN: I did a training for a non-profit organization and I had to role-play as the examiner with five or six of them. And there was one gentleman who sat in the chair and he started every single answer with “that’s a really good question.” Even when I asked about, “So, how long you’ve been with this organization? ” “You know, Bill, that’s a really good question.” And I had to stop him and say, “No, it’s actually not a good question, that’s a really terrible question. It’s just a conversation starter, ” and he saw the absurdity of starting his answer with that.

It was absurd because it had become such a practice that it lost its meaning. Nearly all of us have some kind of linguistic tic, some go-to phrase we probably don’t even know we use. I, for example, begin lane too many convicts with “So.” As in: “So, what have we learned so far? ” Or: “So, what McGowan is really saying here–.” Or: “So, even President Obama implements a verbal bridge.”

McGOWAN: He has two texts he employs that accomplish the same thing. One of them is “look.”

OBAMA: Well, seem, you are familiar with, I imagine Bill, the nature of being President is that you’re always –.

McGOWAN: And the “look” conveys, he’s trying to convey it as, “let me to start being honest with you.” Or the other message he works is 😛 TAGEND

OBAMA: Listen, as I think some of you envisioned as I was out on the campaign trail –.

McGOWAN: “Listen.” And whenever you hear “look” or “listen” come out of the President’s mouth, that planneds he is no longer answering your question; he is answering his question.

But “look” and “listen” are not the only connects used by President Obama 😛 TAGEND

OBAMA: Well, Katherine, this is a great question. And, you know, I was raised by a single mommy –.

So, what exactly is saying “That’s a great question” meant to accomplish?

McGOWAN: I ponder beings do it because they think it reaches two things simultaneously: it allows them to stall for time, and it flatters the examiner.

OKRENT: It’s for check the good vibes croaking. We’re friends here. You’re asking good questions, I’m giving good answers. It impedes a good feeling becoming. And things like “that’s a good question,” ” look ,” “the point is, ” “what I’m saying is” — all of these terms are meta-discourse mottoes. They don’t have to do with the content of the discussion or the things that you’re talking about. They’re about the discussion itself. And what they do is lay out a map or a direction for the people listening to the discussion or the people involved in the discussion. So you say,” Ah yes, the disagreement is, the point is .” And you can do that, lay out these little pebbles, when the discussion actually isn’t going that direction, but you give the illusion that this is what’s happening. And when you’re actually in its consideration of the question, you get the feeling that spots are being realized, and important things are being brought forward and good questions are being asked even if they might not be.

In other commands, as Arika Okrent realises things, it’s linguistic B.S.

OKRENT: Any utterance like that, they start somewhere and then beings pick up on it, people be able to use it sincerely, and if it works well, it starts to become a crutch or a tic, and then people start to notice it, and they start to hate it and complain about it.

McGOWAN: I believe that saying “that’s a really good question” is about as outdated a tic or a strategy as telling beings to visualize the public in their lingerie.

But not everyone has soured on the phrase.

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The media coach Bill McGowan is considered that parties should just stop saying, “That’s a great question.” He thinks it’s nothing more than cheap flattery or a stall for time. But some people do use the phrase strategically. Andy Kessler is a onetime hedge-fund manager who now writes about technology and business. In a 2015 Wall Street Journal column, Kessler wrote about a deception he reveres, used by Silicon Valley inventors at board sees. “When an investor or outside members of the security council asks a stupid question, ” Kessler writes, “the C.E.O. says’ that’s a great question’ and then gives the questioner an action item, something like:’ Okay, can you survey the contender and report back on their capital proposes and hiring ratios? Great, let’s keep going.’ Eventually, ” Kessler writes, “the stupid questions dry up and people who ask them may stop coming to the meetings.” Okay, so you can use the phrase as a chassis of retaliation. Steve Levitt determines another use.

LEVITT: I like to try to, in everything in man, try to reward the people around me and declare when they say funny things or smart things or they examine good or achievement kind or things like that. So as a general rule I’ve adopted, especially since I’ve gotten older, to try to do really nice things to people as much as I can. Especially if they’re very low cost to me, I are happy to do delightful things that don’t expense me anything, but are good to other beings. And so I think that’s one very strong piece of saying, “It’s a great question, ” is really just acknowledgement that someone who’s sort of in the background is actually doing something that’s cool or interesting or challenging.

Let me be clear on one thing: when it comes to saying, “that’s a great question” — perhaps saying it disingenuously — I myself am not innocent. When I’m on the other side of the microphone than I am now, I am a peril 😛 TAGEND

DUBNER: Yeah, that’s a great question.

DUBNER: Yeah, that’s a good question.

DUBNER: Yeah, that’s a great question.

DUBNER: Wow, that’s a really, really good and really hard question. I like it a good deal. That’s the various kinds of question that I would like to have thought to ask person much smarter than me to see what they said.

And I know where I caught it. I caught it from Steve Levitt 😛 TAGEND

LEVITT: Maybe I devised it. Maybe I’m the founder of “that’s a great question.”

DUBNER: I remember when I firstly heard you say it. You were establishing an academic talk. I recall at the University of Chicago. You were discussing research of yours. And in an academic setting, specially, when someone challenges either approach or feels or data or whatever, I predict I to be hoped that the first response would ever be to just shout it down immediately and demo why,” No, I already thoughts this through. And here’s why you’re wrong. And here’s why I’m right .” Because that’s what you see so much in politics. Nobody ever acknowledges that the opposing has a valid point. But I remember you just saying,” You know, that’s a really good question .” And something of the implications of, like,” I wish I’d was just thinking about that while doing my research, because it might be right, it might be wrong, but it certainly ought to have been augmented my envisage on this .” So that, I recollect, is where I first heard it, from you.

LEVITT: I’m sure I stole it from somebody, but I can’t pin my digit on who that particular genius would have been.

DUBNER: All right, well, Levitt, I feel indebted to you because I feel it’s if not valuable, then at least useful, and I use it now and again. And so I would like to return the spare, to give you something that you can use in certain circumstances. So here’s the thing. Do you ever have a circumstance where you’re interacting with someone, maybe kind of in passing and they say something to you and you don’t fairly catch it, or they say something to you that you don’t want to have heard but you kind of need to say something? You ever have that at all?

LEVITT: Yeah, all the time.

DUBNER: All freedom, so here’s what you say. You ready? You might want to write it down.

LEVITT: Yep.

DUBNER: You say, “reebusacassafram.” Let me hear you say that.

LEVITT: Say it one more time.

DUBNER: Reebusacassafram.

LEVITT: Reebus Acassafram?

DUBNER: More like one word. Reebusacassafram.

LEVITT: Reebusacassafram.

DUBNER: Good. Right. So, that is a phrase that was invented that was by some genius. I don’t know who. I do know where I learned to say this was from the former dean of students at Darmouth and he was always getting in these conversations in passing where he had to have the response but he had no idea what the person was talking about. It might have been talking about a relative of yours or a onetime encounter. I could see you squandering this a lot. And you want to say something on your way out, you don’t want to be rude but you have no idea what the response is. If you say “reebusacassafram, ” the human ear will understand that in one of a hundred different ways and they will almost certainly think that you actually said something real when you didn’t.

LEVITT: That’s great, I affection that.

DUBNER: You’re welcome.

LEVITT: I enjoy that. Reebusacassafram.

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Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This occurrence was produced by Suzie Lechtenberg. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, Joel Meyer, Tricia Bobeda, Mary Diduch, Zack Lapinski, Brent Katz, Emma Tyrrell, Lyric Bowditch, Jasmin Klinger, Eleanor Osborne, Ryan Kelley, and Jacob Clemente. Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune, ” by the Hitchhikers. You can follow Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode 😛 TAGEND

SOURCE

Steve Levitt, professor of financials at the University of Chicago and co-author of the Freakonomics books. Arika Okrent, linguist and columnist. Bill McGowan, communications instruct and benefactor/ C.E.O. of Clarity Media Group.

RESOURCE

” Let’s Call Off the Meeting and Get Back to Work ,” by Andy Kessler( The Wall st. Journal, 2015 ). British National Corpus.

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