Out of turn?

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Reader question: In this sentence – We should be able to handle any out of turn remarks or behavior on our own – what does “out of turn” mean?

My comments: When we do something in succession, that is one by one, we are said to be doing it IN TURN.

In the classroom, for example, pupils are often ordered to speak in turn, that is, to speak one after another in an orderly fashion. If someone jumps the queue and speaks before his turn (opportunity to speak), then he is said to be speaking OUT OF TURN.

That sort of behavior is necessarily frowned upon because, in school or elsewhere, such disruptive conduct is generally considered to be impolite and improper.

Hence out-of-turn remarks, remarks that are considered inappropriate and inopportune, either the words are inappropriate or the words might be fine but they are uttered by a person who is not in a position to make those remarks at that particular time or occasion.

In short, out of turn remarks are better not to have been said, as they may cause embarrassment and are therefore prone to criticism. When, for example, US President Barrack Obama remarked in a trip to Europe last month that “Turkey is bound to Europe by more than bridges over the Bosporus”, and therefore “Turkish membership (in the European Union) would broaden and strengthen Europe’s foundation,” a EUObserver.com article (April 9, 2009) questioned: Did Barack Obama talk out of turn about Turkey?

Obama’s are perfectly innocuous remarks by me but not to some Europeans. To them, they sound like Obama are meddling in EU affairs.

That article quoted French president Nicolas Sarkozy as saying: “When it comes to the European Union it is up to member states of the European Union to decide.”

The French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner concurred, saying: “It’s not for the Americans to decide who comes into Europe or not. We are in charge in our own house.”

Alright, here are two more examples of people talking out of turn:

1. David Lloyd was just back from the dentist’s, so his mouth was still in deep freeze. But not his mind, or his anger. Six days after his shock dismissal as Britain’s Davis Cup captain, the millionaire businessman is insisting the Lawn Tennis Association have concealed the true reason for the sacking. And Lloyd’s lawyers have also demanded an apology from the LTA for saying that he damaged the team’s morale with comments about lack of fitness. … “I just want them to admit the reason they fired me was because I spoke out of turn,” Lloyd said. “I did, and it was my job to do it. One minute I am the greatest thing since sliced bread and three months later suddenly everything is wrong. I am not going to accept that.” - ‘I was fired for speaking out of turn’, The Independent, March 5, 2000.

2. “The core feature of the KIPP approach is that character matters for success,” Levin says. “Educators like to talk about character skills when kids are in kindergarten—we send young kids home with a report card about ‘working well with others’ or ‘not talking out of turn.’ But then, just when these skills start to matter, we stop trying to improve them. We just throw up our hands and complain.” Self-control is one of the fundamental “character strengths” emphasized by KIPP… “We know how to teach math skills, but it’s harder to measure character strengths,” he says. - Don’t! - The secret of self-control, New Yorker, May 18, 2009.

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