Varieties of Tics.—There are many more tics than are ordinarily supposed. Indeed, there are few of us who escape them entirely. Nearly all the curious phrases that people interlard so frequently into their conversation, usually quite unconscious of them, or of the ridiculous significance they often have, must be placed under the tics. Some men cannot say a dozen words without interpolating "don't you know." Others use some such expression as "in that way." I once knew a distinguished professor of elocution who by actual count used this phrase forty times in an hour. Some say "hum" or "hem" every sentence or so. Whenever there is a bit of obscurity in their thought these voluntary but unconscious expressions are sure to pop out. No one who has had much experience in public speaking ever succeeds in keeping entirely out of such bad habits. It is curious how phrases will insist on repeating [{566}] themselves. One year one set of words, or a pet phrase, or mode of expression, creeps unconsciously here and there into an address. Then either because the speaker has been reading dictated copy, or because some good friend has the courage to tell him of it, he finds out the bad habit and suppresses it.
Word formulas senselessly repeated are only one of many forms of tics that public speakers are prone to indulge in. Gesture which begins as an artificial adornment of speech, very appropriate in itself, after a while may settle down into certain forms that not only often lack elegance but that are really disturbing to an audience. Of these gestures and movements men are often quite unconscious. They have become habitual and in the absorption of mind with the thought and the words, they are reproduced quite involuntarily though they are all originally voluntary movements. Nearly every public speaker needs a mentor to correct him of such faults. It is rather difficult to break some of these habits and it requires no little concentration of effort and attention to be successful in eradicating them. It can be done, however, provided the habit is not too inveterate, and this is the best evidence that tics of other kinds can also be eradicated if the patient really takes the matter in hand and is not of a weakened will.
Teachers' Habits.—Indeed it is almost impossible for public speakers and teachers not to acquire certain habits irritating to their auditors at first but amusing as they grow used to them, and students particularly learn to look kindly at the ridiculous side of many of them. I remember an old professor of literature who used to lecture at some length on each of the important contributors to English prose and poetry. We soon observed that whenever he came to their deaths he took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. This was as inevitable and as invariable a rule as the laws of the Medes and the Persians. It was, as it were, his tribute of sympathetic condolence with humanity for the loss of a brilliant contributor to English literature.
Occasionally the effort to break up these habits will seriously interfere with modes of thought and habits of expression, for the time being at least. A professor at a certain university had a habit every now and then of plucking at a button on his coat. His students could tell when his hand was going to find this object of its occupation and knew from experience that he would twist it a certain number of times. He was not what would ordinarily be called a nervous person. One day he happened to take off his coat shortly before a lecture and one of the students surreptitiously removed the button. At the end of the first few minutes of his lecture his hand went up to find the button as usual but failed. For the moment there was a hesitancy in his speech; then he tried again. A little later his hand went up unconsciously and was disappointed; then he stammered and lost the thread of his discourse. The last half hour of that lecture was seriously impaired because of the absence of that button.
Tricks of Speech.—There are many other curious tricks of speech that are really tics. Women often indulge in them and sometimes even pretty women spoil their appearance by bad habits. All of us know the pretty woman who talks very fast, but who every now and then projects her tongue a little beyond her teeth. Occasionally there is a tendency to wrinkle the nose or the forehead. Most of us have seen the woman who sets her face into a definite smile of a particular kind whenever her company manners are in [{567}] use, though there is a vacancy behind the smile that is rather disturbing. Some people have habitual movements of the fingers that are really tics, and even positions assumed on sitting down that are very ungraceful, or that are very noticeable, sometimes partake of this character.
Fussiness.—A very common form of tic that is quite difficult to control is that tendency to be doing something with some of their muscles which characterizes many men. They must handle a pencil or a knife, or they must swing on their chair or tilt back on it, or keep one of their limbs swinging over the other, or twirl their moustaches or stroke their beards, or rumple their hair, and they cannot find it quite possible to sit still. The difference between men and women in this regard is remarkable. Women are conceded to be much more nervous than men, but men are ever so much more fidgety than women. The author of "The Life of a Prig" in his book "The Platitudes of a Pessimist" has some striking paragraphs with regard to this subject. He says:
To look nearer home, the British bar affords splendid examples of nervous fidget. Observe barristers pleading a cause. How they torture a piece of red-tape, how they twirl their eye-glasses or spectacles, and how they hitch at their garments, as if they momentarily expected them to desert their finely proportioned figures. But worse than the Queen's Counsellors, and even worse than the domestic peripatetic, is the villain who is abandoned to a performance vulgarly known as "the devil's tattoo"—drumming with the fingers.
Writers' Tics.—Writers, and above all writers for the daily press and such as have to do their writing in a rush and therefore get nervous and anxious about it, are especially prone to develop tics, though others who write leisurely may do so. Some of these are curious and others are only expressions of nervousness common to all people. Many of them chew their nails, some of them bite at their fingers round the nails and make them sore, many of them chew the ends of their pens and find it practically impossible to keep a pen with a long handle to it. Some of them run their hands through their hair until it is in a greatly rumpled condition, some of them pluck at their eyebrows. I have one patient who when he is going through a particular nervous strain plucks out the middle portion of his right eyebrow so that he has a distinct bald spot at this point.
The tradition in newspaper offices is that these curious expressions of the tendency of the body to occupy itself with something while the mind is occupied are more or less inevitable in nervous people. They continue for many, many years. They are only habits, however, that it would have been rather easy to break in the beginning, though they become extremely difficult to modify after they have once secured a firm hold. Occasionally I have fastened a piece of adhesive plaster over a much battered eyebrow, but that made it difficult for the man to go on with his work. His hand would go up involuntarily time after time and while plucking at his eyebrow would not disturb in the slightest his train of thought, just as soon as his fingers touched the unusual object a serious distraction occurred and work was not only slower, but much more difficult.
In Games.—The tendency to the formation of curious habits of associated movements can be seen very well in most games where skill is combined [{568}] to a certain degree with chance. It is most noticeable, perhaps, in bowling. Few men are able to restrain themselves from making some special movement just as the ball strikes the pin. This is sometimes a motion of the head, oftener it is a jerk of the trunk, sometimes it is an associated movement of the arms, occasionally it is a kick or a stamp. In billiards the same movements are noticeable if a man is much interested in making a difficult shot. Usually there is some movement of the body or of the hands or of the head that would indicate his desire to move the ball in a particular direction. Women who play these games do not usually have these associated movements to such a marked degree and this may be due either to their better restraint to movement in general, for as we have said men do not acquire the habit of self-restraint in small matters of deportment as women do, or to the fact that such associated movements might disarrange their clothes. Perhaps, also, they are not as much interested in the games as a rule as are the men. Of course, similar associated movements may be seen in outdoor sports that require skill yet have an element of chance in them. For it is, as it were, to overcome this that the additional movement is made.