Shh!

            I have many questions in life. Here’s one. Why do people, in hopes of making a loud room of talkative individuals quiet, make a simple “Shh” noise? To our minds, or at least mine anyway, this would be a total oxymoron. It is like fighting fire with fire. As most people would understand, a fire plus a fire equals a bigger fire. However, this is not true in this case. When people hear this instinctive and distinctive utterance, they realize, through careful years of training, that they should cease talking.

You see, that is just it. We are trained to understand what people mean when the utter a simple “Shh.” If you do recall, as a child you were taught what this noise means. Since then, with every time you have heard this noise, it has been reinforced in your mind.

This same idea can be observed in a classroom. The children will be chatting with their friends about the weekend, but when they hear a bell or signal that releases them, without cessation, they will rush out the door. Why? It is because children are trained daily by the person operating the bell. Like the simple vocal oust I talked about earlier, the bell causes us to act according to what we have been trained to do. Hopefully, this blog has not made you feel a deep sense of paranoia (that I honestly might be feeling while writing this), but I hope I have brought this strange phenomenon to your attention.

Here's a clip illustrating what I'm talking about courtesy of YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlv7Bp-L2MM