

"They've answered! Amazing! This is amazing!" you scream internally.Īnd what's the first thing you do? You start jibber-jabbering.

I know what it's like when you finally get through to a prospect. He's straight-talking, he doesn't stand for any nonsense and he's got a great haircut. When calling a prospect, I think reps should take some age-old advice from one of my favourite fictional characters from the 80s. This simple skill helps you connect with people very quickly, build rapport and make meaningful connections.īut if you're not also good at listening - you're going to struggle. Any attempt to change this order sounds BAD.Jibber-Jabber Rapid and excited speech that is difficult to understand.īeing good at talking is one of the best skills you can have in sales. Adjective categories always come in a particular order. It turns out that there is another unwritten rule in English grammar-one that most people have never noticed before. Second, Word People understand that language should be celebrated! It’s our heritage, and it’s fun! The Unwritten Adjective Rule If you want your pioneering ablaut reduplication to catch on fist-fast, then follow the rule.

Wordplayers who want to add fresh ideas to our collective lexicon should pay attention. Are you saying that as television Tim, or TIM-tim?įirst, new words are being created all the time.Ĭontrastive focus reduplication uses stressed repetition to highlight the distinction between a noun’s essence and its literal state: It expresses indifference by pairing a word with a made-up reformation of the first word where the initial consonant is replaced by shm.Ĭomparative reduplication repeats an adjective to indicate an object’s change over time:Ĭomparative reduplication can avoid unintentional comparisons to another object, for instance: Shm- reduplication is a feature of American English with Yiddish roots. Rhyming reduplication refers to simple word pairs that rhyme:Įxact reduplication employs repeated words evocative of baby talk, which soften the tone of the subject: See-saw doesn’t use the letter i, but the high-vowel-before-low-vowel pattern still applies.Ĭool, right? If you think of any counter examples, let us know! Five Other Types of Reduplication 1. The i sound is considered a high vowel because of the location of the tongue relative to the mouth in American speech. In linguistic terms, you could say that a high vowel comes before a low vowel. In all these ablaut reduplication word pairs, the key vowels appear in a specific order: either i before a, or i before o. See if you can spot the unwritten rule in the following list of ablaut reduplication examples: Ablaut reduplication pairs words with internal vowel alternations. English has at least six types of reduplication. In linguistics, reduplication is the expressive repetition of a single word, or the pairing of a word with another of similar sound or spelling. You’ve definitely used it, but you’ve almost certainly never noticed. Like The Unwritten Adjective Rule, The Unwritten Ablaut Reduplication Rule is a maxim that we all seem to follow instinctively. English is rich with fun, eccentric conventions that go unnoticed.
