Fishing for Shibboleths
Have you ever started a conversation with someone, only to at some point hear them say a particular word or phrase which immediately makes you want to find anyone else to talk to? Or, on the other hand, hear them use a word or phrase which makes you want to be good friends with them? These words and phrases are called shibboleths. I was so happy to have come across this word recently, as it seemed to connect a lot of dots in how subtleties in our word choice can give a thoughtful observer a significant amount of information.
While language seems to rely on some heuristic availability mechanism that takes words from the tip of our tongue and project them into a conversation, the potential shoehorning of shibboleths could act as both a subconscious or conscious social defense mechanism. I believe this hinges on the social psychological premise that people prefer the company of those we can relate to. Thus, shibboleths are so often heard or even birthed from group-think chanting, similar to what you may hear at protests and rallies.
Even more so, when two people with drastically different and topical views engage in discourse, you may observe the use of shibboleths to act as a sort of red herring. In this case, an individual uses them to signal a reminder that the recipient is an outsider, opposition, or out of their depth. This seems to fall under the conscious defensive mechanism category mentioned prior. Whereas this shibboleth doesn't necessarily add any new or prior unknown information to the discussion, it could shift the conversation to focus on how different both participants are from each other, rather than finding common ground.
Shibboleths, however, are not at all limited to verbal communication. Sit in a public space for a while, and you will notice just how prevalent they are. We have them on our clothes, tattooed on our skin, and in our shopping bags. Each one informative to a thoughtful observer.