by D. C. Adams

Created on: July 03, 2009   Last Updated: July 07, 2009

For 700 years, being called a "gossip" would have elicited a courteous "Thank you," meaning "close friend," or literally, "God sib" (godparent, friend or relative). Language, though, tends to evolve, and so the term became synonymous with conversation between close friends and family. From this point, it was not a far leap from gossip to rumor, and the two have been inseparable ever since.

Modern gossip thrives in small communities. There is no way to avoid quoting John Mellencamp as I reveal to you that "I was born in a small town. / And I live in a small town." I could go on, too, since my parents do, in fact, "live in the same small town," and so on. This town is also a prime laboratory for conducting gossip experiments, and my friends and I have done so for years, all for our own amusement. Together, we'd plant false seeds, and watch them bear flawed fruit with very little nurturing from us. This is how the community found out I had broken up with my girlfriend on the same day on which I asked her to marry me (starting conflicting rumors, we felt, was equivalent to any other contest worthy of a gambler's dollar, and we listened intently to see which lie would win the race to perceived truth).

Of course, my pals and I were not always the sinister, scheming source of the rumor mill. In high school, I received condolences from a girl who had heard that my younger sister died in choir class (She had fainted). On another occasion, I returned from a trip to Nashville to find that I had apparently written a song for Clint Black!

Gossip, as it turns out, may be the quickest path for information to travel. Sadly, it is not governed by rules of journalistic integrity. There are seldom confirmations or fact-checkers. On the other hand, like a reporter, a gossip hurries viciously to be the first to know (and share) a given piece of information.

It was through this very system that I learned of the death of my friend Jacob. Crushed and emotionally drained, I didn't know what to say as I phoned his widow. I certainly didn't know what to say when Jacob answered the phone, and explained that it was not he, but his brother, who had been in an auto accident that afternoon. I did my best to express sympathy for his loss, simultaneously rejoicing in his own health and safety. If rumors are matches, I was clearly burned in this case for playing with fire in my youth.
Then again, the gossip chain in my hometown has alerted me to deaths that were entirely true, as well as dangerous weather conditions, celebrity visitors, and escaped convicts from the local jail.

Why is it that small towns are known for gossip more than larger communities? Some say it is because we have nothing else to do, so we create stories out of boredom. Or, perhaps it is the fact that for stories to be passed around an intricate web of contacts, there must first exist a tight network of relationships, and this is only possible in small towns, where a community is truly a community.

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