People clear their throats for all sorts of reasons. You can tell it’s going to be a funny text. I just can’t think of anything else right now.
People clear their throats at the strangest moments. Except maybe at the dentist’s, because I would say that doesn’t really work.
Sometimes people clear their throat when they don’t know what to say. Or when they want to distract from something – or even point something out.
Or maybe there’s really something in your throat that’s bothering you. Or you clear your throat because you are gathering up the courage to say something that takes an effort.
Is clearing one’s throat a modern phenomenon, or has it been around forever? It is also a sure sign that someone is lying. Or that someone is doing it deliberately to feign an alleged insecurity in order to manipulate the other person, so to speak.
You see, you can write a lot about clearing your throat and think about it even more. Did so-called Stone Age people already do that? That’s what I mean when I ask whether or not clearing one’s throat is a modern phenomenon. I can’t answer that conclusively.
Oh, and sometimes, and maybe that’s the most common reason for clearing one’s throat, a person just wants to draw attention to themselves. Make it clear to someone else that they are somewhere. That you are there. For example, someone clears their throat through the toilet door because they notice someone walking towards the door in the hallway, and the actual problem is not that someone is in the toilet, but that the door is broken and not locked.
Then the person clears their throat at just the right moment: when the person is still quite a distance away, but close enough for them to hear the clearing of the throat, but not so close that they can open the door yet. Do you understand?
Strictly speaking, it’s an art form to get it just right. In this situation: someone is sitting on the toilet, the toilet door is closed, but not locked and only pulled closed.
Well, so much for that.
If I had to bet, I would bet that this is the most common reason why people clear their throat. The unspoken and most common reason.
Have fun clearing your throat.