Thirty years ago, two West Virginia University researchers, James C. McCroskey and Virginia P. Richmond, coined the term talkaholic [bavard compulsif, sur le modèle de workaholic, bourreau de travail]. Said of any person unable to be silent. A chatterbox, in short.
“Not content with talking a lot, they do it compulsively, explained these two communication experts. This type of personality creates problems for itself, when the only thing to do to avoid them is to keep quiet.”
In order to diagnose unrepentant talkers, McCroskey and Richmond devised a test that assesses the subject’s degree of verbal incontinence. Do you talk more than necessary? Do you even open it when you know you’d better shut up? Are you often asked to be quiet?
More than 40 points on this scale make you an authentic chatterbox. Three decades after the first questionnaire, a certain Dan Lyons obtained 50, the highest score. “I am an inveterate talker, and it cost me dearly”, he acknowledges.
“The question is not only that I talk too much, but that I have often had inappropriate remarks, that I don’t know how to keep anything to myself.”
“Do not take it badly”
This competitive borer is also a writer and journalist. He was editor at Forbes and to Newsweek, until he was fired and ended up working, at 52, for a start-up. An experience from which he drew two successful essays, where he describes the delirious world of work in Silicon Valley: Disrupted [sous-titre : My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble, non traduit en français] et Lab Rats [Les Nouveaux Cobayes. Comment les entreprises génèrent précarité et mal-être au travail, FYP Éditions].
“At that time, I was living alone in a rental house, away from my wife and children, told Lyons in an article published in January in the magazine Time. I then carried out an ‘introspective and fearless moral inventory’ about myself, like Alcoholics Anonymous does, and I recognized that talking too much was playing tricks on me in life. Which led me to ask myself