To say 'there, there' do I have to touch someone's shoulder?
If so can I say it while touching another part of the body?
For example:
There, there, don't cry. Everything will be OK.
Or can I say it without doing it?
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1No. The word there in this context is essentially phatic (it doesn't really "mean" anything, and you certainly shouldn't assume it's got anything to do with the "location" sense of the word in other contexts).– FumbleFingersDec 20, 2020 at 17:44
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1Have a look at What does “there, there” actually mean? and Where did “There, there” (in consoling) come from? as asked on ELU.– FumbleFingersDec 20, 2020 at 17:47
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1 Answer
"There-there", as noted in a comment, does not really mean anything. It is an expression used when comforting something. Just like saying "Bless you" when someone sneezes does not really mean a blessing.
"There there" is well described as a "comforting verbal gesture". It goes naturally with other comforting gestures, such as gentle contact on a non-threatening part of the body, such as a shoulder. Depending on your relationship "gentle non-threatening contact" could be a hug, a pat on the head or a back-rub. But you can say "there there" without touching.
I'm not sure how common it actually is. The context is rather unusual, it would normally be a parent comforting a child (and so not a context that English Language Learners are likely to be in, though it might be used for a piece of fiction) In this context you would probably have picked up the child and be making lots of hushing and soothing sounds, but I suspect this is common across languages and cultures. I suspect it is rather unlikely used adult-to-adult, but this kind of language is poorly recorded in corpora of written English.
