>now people suspect that it's a smokescreen to hide BS behind. In fact, this is usually a good heuristic to tell whether someone is trying to get off the hook

>now people suspect that it's a smokescreen to hide BS behind. In fact, this is usually a good heuristic to tell whether someone is trying to get off the hook with saying nothing at all. Politicians love this. It's all about filling up the listener/reader's short term memory buffer and get them to lose track of what you were saying. Once you've done that you can basically loop for a pretty long time. Many are embarrassed enough of their mental limitations that they'll just pretend something important was said rather than confront the speaker or admit to themselves that they can't keep up. That said, that kind of writing is gold when you're writing fiction with, say, Gaimanesque magic in it, because it allows you to be really woolly and create a sense of non-understanding and mystique.