By  Yolande Robbins

I am a long-time addict of British sit-coms on PBS. The reason, I think, is the actual talking exchange between the characters in the stories. The narratives are advanced by the talk. There is little genuine “action.”

This also corresponds to a distinct social format that’s largely missing today. And it was called “visiting.” Children dressed up and went with their mothers to visit a friend or a relative and could reasonably expect “tea cakes” and lemonade. But most of all, there was talk.

And not gossip.

At least not that the children could hear.

Talk was probably about the “War” or other momentous issues. At some point, it would include family and polite but not prying exchanges, the key word here being “exchanges.”

Someone said something; then someone else said something else.

Conversation wasn’t performance art then. It wasn’t endless or meant to dominate or persuade. It was primarily an exchange with the added benefit of being face-to-face. In a word we hardly ever use — or need — anymore, it was “transactional.”

But today, we are kidnapped by one-sided conversations in taxis and grocery-store aisles. Talk seems less like a conversation and more like a monologue anywhere you go.

People “process” more than they seem to talk, meandering through things-to-do as they eventually answer the question you’ve asked about how their uncle is doing. A request for some very specific information becomes an invitation to musing. And once distinctly forbidden “interruptions” become your only way out.

Culturally, American conversation used to be southern and identified as such, all wrapped up in front-porch imagery with passed-down history and stories. But not anymore, I think. That has died too, both the expectation and the occurrence of it.

The truth is, only Brits seem to converse anymore; they talk to each other and tell stories. If you compulsively watch their sit-coms like me, every legendary and recalled favorite has conversation as its motif: “Fawlty Towers,” “Yes, Prime Minister;” “Keeping Up Appearances;” “As Time Goes By.” And even when we did it oddly, as in “My Dinner With Andre,” there was much to admire in the effort.

I had a physician friend in Chicago who always began his students’ oral comps with the same question, “What was the last book that you read?” He said that the first time he’d done it, his students were baffled and stammering. They were ready to talk about heart surgery and cancer. But what he wanted, he told them, was well-read doctors and not merely skilled ones. So over the years, his first question stayed. Generations of about-to-be medical doctors came to exams prepared to talk several minutes with Dr. Carasso about the last book they had read. It was genius.

So today when I work The NYT daily Mini puzzle as a bulwark against dementia. I’m thrilled when I remember the things I once knew and can still talk about; not so thrilled when I cannot or don’t.

So come have some tea.

And let’s talk.
Yolande Robbins is a community correspondent for The Vicksburg Post. You may email her at  yolanderobbins@fastmail.