Because it’s Friday and I’m bored. I wanted to come up with a list of words or phrases you can “say” without actually uttering any words.
For instance, close your mouth and convey the phrase “I don’t know.”
You didn’t say a word but you’re immediately thinking about this sing songy group of notes that would let anyone who heard it know exactly what you meant.
First, what’s that called? And second, what other words or phrases can you convey in that manner?
Here’s a list to get us started
Yes (or rather, “uh-huh”)
No (or rather, “nuh-uh”)
What did you just say? (hmmmm?)
Oh oh!
Whoo-hoo!
I don’t really care one way or the other, or for either of those choices (Meh.)
I’m not really sure, let me think on that a minute (hmmmm…)
And also there’s the kind of “mmmm” in a high pitch that means you think the other person’s claim is dubious. Youddon’t quite want to interrupt, but you want the other person to know they need to state a better case.
There’s always the classic early morning greeting “Mph” or just “Mm”, that means, essentially “I hear and acknowledge your greeting to me, but I’m not capable of being social quite yet.”
This one is the most interesting to me, because what you are doing is mimicking how you say “I don’t know.” In fact, you may even be articulating the entire phrase, just with your mouth closed.
The rest of these just seem like words of their own. There’s no correlation to how you would say it if you were using “normal” words.
