Why Flight Attendants Talk Like Space Aliens
Flight attendants are always, like, "I'm going to go ahead and check your bag" or "I'm going to need you to put up your tray table" or "We do have FAA rules on alcohol consumption to enforce, Mr. Tate." But why do they talk like that? Well, because it pays. Duh.
Inserting superflous "dos" and "go aheads" grabs a passenger's attention early in an announcement, so the flight attendant doesn't have to repeat himself, a linguist/writer tells Forbes's Jeff Bercovici (himself no stranger to arresting phrases). Another expert speculates that the airlines have carefully monitored customer service scripts to drive down time spent on each customer, and stumbled onto some thusly useful phrases like"I'm going to go ahead and pull up your account…If you'd just go ahead and enter your password," two expression Bercovici recently encountered.
Of course, these theories assume the rituals of air travel are driven by reason and facts rather than mindless repetitive tradition and an inclination to pose. I'm going to go ahead and call that a precarious assumption.
