A Fertile Imagination and the Pregnant Pause

Today, let us consider the pregnant pause , that fraught-filled moment, either within a statement or between two statements, which we endure with bated breath while we await the next word. It is, as its name implies, a pause heavy with expected import, rich with potential meaning. The word preceding it is usually heavily stressed, and the voice does not drop.

“Well . . . “

I bet you can hardly wait.

Another phrase that often precedes a pregnant pause is, “or else . . . ,” and after the pause, “you’ll live to regret it.”

I had an elderly relative whose favorite set-up word was, “Candidly . . . ,” followed by the hitching of his chair in the direction of his (usually captive) audience. Then, lowering his voice confidentially, he would launch into some apocryphal anecdote. There were, of course, other pregnant pauses injudiciously splattered throughout his discourse, but none was quite as portentous as that first “Candidly . . . “

I don’t mean to discredit the pregnant pause, nor do I mean to delimit its use. There are times when pauses are welcome. I recall one sweet old lady from my past who had no use for the pregnant pause at all--or any kind of pause for that matter. During her lengthy soliloquies, she would skip from topic to topic without any change in tone or pace, a confusing stream of words that soon lost most of its comprehensibility. I don’t know where she got the breath for it. At times I would even think I detected a touch of cyanosis around her nose, but even as I was mentally reviewing an ancient course in mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, the dear thing would suck in a long-whistling gulp of air (somewhere between the verb and the objective clause) and off she’d go again. She certainly could have used a few pregnant pauses, and I think she knew that, as she was a smart old lady. Maybe she had tried one once, and someone else had taken over the conversation. Quite obviously she didn’t intend that to happen again.

Here in San Diego I have noticed an unusually rich use of the pregnant pause. Who of you has listened to the 6:30 news and not thrilled to the lavish technique of the ladies and gentlemen of local television land. How many times have you shivered in anticipation after the voices. “More of this . . . ,” pregnant pause, a deepening of the register, “later tonight.”

Of course in every broadcast there are other pregnant pauses before that final one, each woven deftly into the otherwise pallid news of the day. Do you recall, “he was riding . . . ,” pregnant pause and then the zinger, “with a friend.” Or perhaps you favor, “There were several . . . ,” P.P., “people there.”

Have you ever wondered why the network anchor people have failed to pick up this dynamic technique. Imagine how galvanizing it would be if Dan Rather were to say, “Good evening, everyone. This is the CBS . . . ,” (P.P., drop in tone) “Evening News.”

Or could it be that I have identified an artistic innovation, a first? Do we have here in San Diego a handful of stylists who are pioneering a new art form--the San Diego School of Non-Visual Communication. Sort of like the avant garde artists of Paris in the ‘20s. In that case, watch the copyists burgeon. In no time at all, anchor people from Pocatello, Ida. to Fall River, Mass. will be saying, “Down from . . . , (P.P.) “the mountains,” or, “At the tip of . . . (P.P.) “Cape Cod.”

But wait! Let us not jump to premature conclusions. Let’s speculate on other possible explanations of the phenomena. Consider this. Television is a very demanding medium, timewise. All local stations must pace themselves carefully so that all interface with the network at the same second. So how can local producers make the adjustments necessary to achieve this precision?

Their fiendishly clever announcers are supplied with scripts that are supposed to fill the time slot allocated to the news. But sometimes there may not be quite enough material. Suppose that these wily veterans can spot a shortfall of, let’s say, one and a half seconds in a half hour program. What better way to pad it out? You guessed it: the pregnant pause.

Then again, maybe it’s just their teleprompters. Perhaps they’re getting old and stick a little bit.