Sub-Language as Social Badge

Innumerable sentences that are said are mainly social cement, keeping people together by engaging in the sociable action of speaking and listening, playing with the common code like any other game, and telling enough information to avoid the pain of a blank mind. Or we can put this in a way that is not quite the same: we are communal animals, an important part of our communal nature is speaking, so when we can we speak. To call it cement describes better the talk in a bar, where people might otherwise be lonely. To avoid blankness of mind is the reason for most reading of newspapers, which must be the largest proportion of all reading. But to call it the chatter of a communal species better describes the small talk of chance meetings on the street or across the back fence, drop-in visits, talk around card tables, ordinary (pleasant) family life, ceremonial dinners.

I have no statistics but my impression is that, on the whole, small talk sticks closer to the constant and supr...