Re: virus: By George,

Tim Rhodes (proftim@speakeasy.org)
Fri, 6 Feb 1998 12:18:18 -0800


Wade T.Smith wrote:

> Eric wrote:
> >I've been thinking about expressions like these -- "My God", "Jesus!"
etc.
> >-- for a while now.
>
> They are called interjections.
>
> Are we to now declare all parts of speech to be memes?

No, not all parts of speech are memes. Just like not all molecules with
paired purine bases are genes. The distiguishing part is: do they
replicate and are they subject to selection. This is what makes a gene
something other than every other organic molecule. And it is the same
thing that seperates a meme from any other run-of-the-mill part of speech.

Can interjections be memes? Do they sometimes replicate and suffer under
selection pressures? Are some of them more than just parts of speech?
Let's think about it for a minute.

I think the very nature of language pretty much guarantees the first part;
replication. Since we learn and use the words and phrases we've heard from
others, I think it would be hard to reject most phrases on this basis.
(And aren't interjections just very short phrases used to express emotion?)
Where did your use of "My God!" come from? You heard it from someone else
and picked it up for yourself. And they heard it from someone else as
well, who more than likely also heard it from someone else, and so on. So,
yes, interjections, like most language, replicates.

Are interjections subject to selection pressures? Its a little trickier
question, but not by much. How often do you hear or use "Gee Willickers!",
"Holy Moley", "Geepers!", "What ho!", "Hey Nonny Nonny!", "Good Golly!" or
"Groovy!"? It would seem that interjections, like many turns of a phrase,
tend to come and go in popularity over time. An interjection much in use
in one generation, may fall into the margins in the next. That ebb and
flow of popularity, of the number of people using an interjection, should
be a hint to the fact that there is some sort of pressures working on an
interjection. If there are factors which influence the use of one
interjection over another (common usage, cultural or group distinction,
etc.) and these factors influnce how often any given interjection is spoken
(and thus availible for replication), then it would seem that some
interjections are, in fact, subject to a form of selection pressure.

Replication and selection; most interjections are subject to both. And so
yes, that subset of the parts of speech (interjections) would seem to
qualify easily as memes. There is nothing to stop a part of speech from
being a meme, as long as it meets the criteria. After applying a little
critical thought, rather than just flipancy, to the matter, interjections
would seem to do just that.

An interjection can be a meme.

Word!

-Prof. Tim