A MARATHON AND DISCOURSE FILLERS

 

You know I have talked about fillers often in some of my posts, both in English and Spanish. Today I was reminded of them again because I was watching the Madrid Marathon on TV, which Africans always win as a matter of course. But this year, -surprise- a few Spaniards came close and got second, third, and fourth places, in several categories, full marathon, half marathon, women, men, etc. And at the end of the race, they were interviewed on the spot about how it was, how they felt, why they decided to run, etc. Each of them used the filler "la verdad es que" several times, too many times. "-¿Ha sido difícil correr durante más de dos horas? -La verdad es que correr dos horas no es fácil" "-¿Contenta porque hace buen tiempo? -La verdad es que hace buen tiempo, sí." "-La verdad es que ha corridor usted muy bien. -"Sí, es verdad, la verdad es que sí. "Luckily, they did not interview the 45,000 runners who participated because we would have heard 100,000 "la verdad es que." This may appear trivial, but it is not. The average speaker seems to have a poor command of their language and needs to use fillers constantly. We have to investigate these fillers from a psychological angle.