Like many of you, last night I watched the first evening of congressional hearings on the events of January 6, 2020. At one point in the video they played, there was a bone chilling sequence of shots as a crowd of armed men wandered the halls of congress chanting “Nancy, Nancy…” as they tried to find Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Their chant was exactly what it was intended to be: menacing.

But…why? Or rather, how?

Just as some claim that the people who breached the capitol on January 6th were peaceful demonstrators or regular tourists, I would not be surprised if some claim that it was a harmless chant, or even one in support of the Speaker. That got me thinking about how exactly it has the effect of being menacing.

For reference, here is a video (warning, it’s disturbing, obviously).

In short, we use different intonational patterns to do different things in English. The one they were using here is associated with, obviously, looking for someone. In this case, it’s a sing-songy fall: you pick a pitch, hold it on the first syllable, and then pick a pitch a minor third below and hold it just as long on the second syllable. There are other variations — in fact, the way we discussed this in Phonology in grad school was with the “Oh, [name]” paradigm. That starts with a lower note, and then has the “Nancy” pattern. If you’re a musician, that would be C, E, G in the key of C. The person filming in the video above starts with this figure, and then modulates upward. You use the same pattern no matter the length of the name, so you can fit two notes to one name (“Oh, Jaaaaa-ack”) or fit all three to a longer name, where you hold the low note until you get to the primary stressed syllable, which gets the high note, and the drop off comes after that.

This is classic “looking for you” intonation in English. Not inherently menacing, but also, not inherently not menacing. But it’s also not something that occurs completely in a vacuum. I was tempted to call this the “Wendy” intonational pattern in writing this, because I could have sworn Jack Nicholson uses it in the “bat scene” in The Shining, but I seem to be having a Mandela Effect/Berenstain Bears moment. Nevertheless, it’s a classic mainstay of the horror genre. You might use this intonation when looking for a child playing hide-and-seek (indeed, Ladd mentions hide-and-seek explicitly in Intonational Phonology (1996)), but when it’s armed men who have breached a secure area and are looking for a public figure to murder, it’s clearly used ironically to heighten the menacing effect. They weren’t planning a tickle party for Pelosi, regardless what asinine defenses they may come up with after the fact.

Lest anyone say they were just chanting their support (the “boo-urns” defense), that would be a sustained pitch on the first syllable and a very short second syllable (I’d notate this musically as a whole note followed by a staccato quarter note or eight note a fourth above; C for a bar followed by a short F, if we’re in C).

As horrifying as this particular topic is, it underscores what I like about linguistics: it helps make sense of the world. We all know that the chants were intended as menacing, and we all know that any claim otherwise is asinine. We could, with minimal prompting, generate a variety of intonational patterns for the same name or phrase or sentence (think about it: how would you say “Nancy” to indicate surprise? Dismissing a ridiculous idea from someone named Nancy? To indicate tender, loving emotions?). Really think about it! Here are my answers:

But most of us could not put to words, or music, what we inherently know about our native languages. And having the skills to dissect, analyze, and discuss those patterns doesn’t just help one learn other languages (although, it does do that). In this instance, it helps make sense of why some arguments are clearly disingenuous, in a very high-stakes context.

Have a question or comment? Share your thoughts below!