Re: [forteana] Secrets of language

Philippe Caquant wrote:
(Barbara Barrett quoted:)

> "The language of emails is also under intense scrutiny
> from researchers. [...] Starting a sentence with the
> word 'well' was also common among neurotics."
>
> Well, I won't do it any more.
>
Well, and if it applies to the spoken language, then 99.9% of Americans are
neurotic.  (Others need not comment :-)) ) Possibly the entire English L1
world....

In 5th grade, when one of us used "well...", the teacher used to draw a
little box on the blackboard, write "well" inside, and announce, "We're
going to have a funeral and bury that word".  Fat lot of good it did.  Were
we already neurotic at age 10-11?