walker-talker

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 11:23 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> overheard yesterday: "I'm a walker-talker", with the explanation:
> "someone who walks and talks on the phone".
>
> didn't get any similar hits -- instead, mentions of a communication
> device called the WalkerTalker, references to a child who is "a late
> walker/talker", a "walker talker doll", and irrelevancies.
>
> certainly the modern world is full of walker-talkers in the first
> sense above.

There's a relevant (unsourced) article on Wikipedia:

----
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_and_talk
Walk and Talk - sometimes referred to as pedeconferencing - is a
distinctive storytelling-technique used in film and television in
which a number of characters have a conversation en route. The most
basic form of Walk and Talk involves a walking character who is then
joined by another character. The two then talk on their way to their
destination(s). Variations include interruptions from other
characters, and Walk and Talk relay races, in which new characters
join the group and one of the original characters leaves the
conversation, while the remaining characters continue the walking and
talking. [etc.]
----

"Pedeconferencing" came up here in a Jan. '05 thread about terms
popularized by the website Television Without Pity (referring to "The
West Wing").


--Ben Zimmer

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org