Talk Is Cheap : Oxford University Press : 9780195115253 : 0195115252 : 22 Feb 2001 : Putting aside questions of truth and falsehood, the old "talk is cheap" maxim carries as much weight as ever. Indeed, perhaps more. For one need not be an expert in irony or sarcasm to realize that people don't necessarily mean what they say. Phrases such as "Yeah, right" and "I couldn't care less" are so much a part of the way we speak--and the way we live--that we are more likely to notice when they are absent (for example, Forrest Gump). From our everyday dialogues and conversations ("Thanks a lot!") to the screenplays of our popular films (Pulp Fiction and Fargo), what is said is frequently very different from what is meant. Talk is Cheap begins with this telling observation and proceeds to argue that such "unplain speaking" is fundamentally embedded in the way we now talk. Author John Haiman traces this sea-change in our use of language to the emergence of a postmodern "divided self" who is hyper