I DON'T KNOW

I Don't Know

I find myself saying this a lot these days. And I hear it from everyone else too — on social media, in conversations with colleagues, in small talk with strangers.

When an immigrant arrives in a new country, they usually know the basic, functional English. What they don't have yet is the rest of it — the metaphors, the idioms, the situational replies. That part you only learn by listening, by noticing how the people around you actually talk.

So I notice. And what I've noticed is that people tack "I don't know" onto the end of almost anything — an opinion, a piece of advice, a plain fact.

I started paying attention to it the day I heard myself doing it too. It felt like something a dumb person would say.

Am I dumb?
Is that the honest answer — dumb?
Maybe.
I don't know.

Haaaa! And there it is again.

Those three words fit anywhere. Into any sentence, any conversation, any silence you don't want to fill.

What I can't figure out is how you can say "I don't know" even when you do know. Am I playing it safe? Safe from what — being wrong, or being judged for having an opinion at all? Or is it something closer to modesty — a way of saying I don't know any better than you do, whether or not that's true?

When I moved to Canada, I noticed something else in how people gave advice. Instead of "you should," which is how we'd say it back home, people here would say, "I would do this, if I were you." I remember thinking it was a clever way to suggest something without ordering someone around. Somewhere along the way, without deciding to, I started saying it myself. Now people tell me I sound more formal. I suppose that's become the new normal for me.

It's different with some of my older clients at work. Their rhythms, their phrasing — none of it matches what I hear on the street or online. And that's what set me thinking.

How much of the way I speak is actually mine? How much did I just absorb because I heard it enough times for it to stick?

Moving somewhere new means constantly absorbing things — a word, a phrase, a way of responding, a way of softening a request. Most of the time you don't notice until the day it comes out of your own mouth.

Maybe that's not a bad thing. But it does raise a question: why keep something just because it's common? I don't have to.

You keep what feels right. You pick up what pleases you. And you let the rest pass through.

That, I think, is what I'm actually learning now — not just how the people around me speak, but what of it I actually want to keep.