If one is a regular listener to NPR News and the BBC World Service, for all the Americanization of the British source one is still struck by the differences in the way that the readers/hosts on the BBC deal linguistically with reporters by way of their closing acknowledgement of the latter’s reports. Unlike their American counterparts, who trip all over themselves to thank each other, the BBC hosts either say nothing or limit themselves to repeating the name and location of the reporter, occasionally thanking them ex parte (i.e. without waiting for or expecting a response). This is as it should be. After all, courtesy is totally out of place in such exchanges. The reporters are only doing their job, and thanks are not in order. This utterly fatuous misemployment of the phatic function is tantamount to a worker on an assembly line thanking a fellow-worker for passing along an item.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition defines phatic as “Of, relating to, or being speech used to share feelings or to establish a mood of sociability rather than to communicate information or ideas.” The habit of NPR on-the-air personnel’s exchanging the phatic tokens “Thanks,” “You’re welcome,” “My pleasure,” etc. is a kind of linguistic perversion of the speakers’ status and roles. This kind of aporetic speech reaches grotesque proportions when, for instance––as was heard recently––an NPR reporter is thanked by the host for a report on the death of victims of a mass murder and responds “My pleasure.”

MICHAEL SHAPIRO