Gossip, Shoptalk, and Small Talk

NORMALLY when a company of people get together, conversation is first about the weather and one another, then about mutual acquaintances, then it narrows into shoptalk, or widens into "small talk." When two people get together, or a number of old cronies get together, the conversation too often tends to hover about mutual acquaintances. The Irish Digest carried this illuminating item:

A woman wrote to a daily paper from a very lonely spot: "My sister and I aren't exactly lonely out here. We have got each other to speak to, but we need another woman to talk about."

This brings up the whole troublesome matter of gossip. Etymologically gossip meant related through God, namely godparents; then it came to mean cronies, and thereafter newsmongering or idle tattling. Essentially it is the category of conversation which concentrates on mutual friends and acquaintances. It falls between talk of one's self, the lowliest form of conversation, and discussion of ideas, the most exalted form. On the face of it, therefore, it is not intrinsically a bad thing. But because under the impact of original sin people who talk about their absent neighbors too easily stress their neighbors' weaknesses, gossip is in somewhat ill repute. As a cartoon in Collier's expressed it: "Of course, there's a lot to be said in her favor, but it's not nearly so interesting."