Me and my best friend have come to know each other so well that grounding is very rarely an issue. Normally I am an extremely random person so it is hard for someone who doesn't know me to really pick up on my words and find common ground. This past weekend there was a banquet that was going on during Valentine's Day. He decided to go, while I decided to stay home to watch the All-Star Game.
me: Amerie was featured for the three point shootout, and John Legend for the skills challenge
C: Which song?
C: Who won the shootout? Cook or Kapono?
me: Kapono got knocked out. Cook is shootin now.
C: Good S!@#!
me:Lewis and Cook are tied!!!
me: Cook took it! U missed a good one.
C: I saw some of it LOL
me: nice
me:This All-star weekend was unconventional, when it came to the winners. Didnt expect ne of the winners to win
me: uggh, they used the pussycat dolls for the slam dunk contest
C: booo!
me: exactly
me:Dwight Howard is goofy.
me: Turk is at the dunk contest!!!
C: awesome!!!
me: The commentary is stupid. And Dwight is doin a lot.
me: Why did Dwight pull out a twelve foot rim?! Got a phone booth to change in the superman costume
C: Dwight is a monster!
me: Nate is kryptonite!!!
C: I have to vote for Dwight
me: Yeah I voted for Nate. He dunkin over Superman
me: Lex Luthor beat Superman
me: Good Slam Dunk Contest
Because we watch the same things and watch a lot of sports the common ground was strong. When he was leaving to go to the banquet we were watching the shooting stars competition.In the opening of the competition, they had a music video that featured Britney Spears with highlights. So when I opened the conversation with the John Legend and Amerie comment he was able to understand that I was talking about the opening. From there he asked about certain players and who won. He didn't make it clear which competition but because he said Jason Kapono I was able to figure out that he was talking about the three point contest because we both know he won the contest the last two years.
When I said Turk was at the slam dunk contest, it was more or less a random statement that references to our mutual favorite show "Scrubs". Cristopher Turk is a surgeon played by Donald Faison who was in the celebrity basketball game the night before so he was watching the slam dunk contest. Because we spend a lot of time together and like most of the same things we can communicate with very little need for clarification. Even if it is something completely random like Chris Turk being at the dunk contest, using nicknames for players, or creating nicknames on the spot. The discussion was smooth all the way through.
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I agree that spending a lot of time together can build a lot of common ground, making grounding often unnecessary. I like the use of Turk best in your example because I was able to follow most of the conversation just because I also watched it on Saturday night, but I really had no idea what you were talking about with Turk until I read the explanation. I think this has parallels in real life also. For example, when talking with my friends, I can say "Shane said..." and everyone will know exactly who I'm talking about, since we only hang out with one Shane. Though many exist, only one makes sense in context. I think it's the same for you two and Turk.
ReplyDeletegreat post john...i have three brothers and we always text back and forth during all-star weekend...recently the chapel hill-duke game was on and i was in the library for the entire first half. Everytime they would text me, it would be a score or "Singler got t-ed up" and i understood what they were talking about everytime. Good job of describing the common ground and everything man.
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