Palaver

Sandra had exactly the right word for what Johnny was doing with his endless rambling and silly questions.

Noun. Prolonged and idle discussion.
Verb. To talk unnecessarily at length.

But what's the difference between that and small talk or most conversation? It's just useless chatter. I mean what purpose does it serve for a clerk to ask "how are you?" They don't expect a list of all your problems or a gratitude list. They just expect you to say "ok" or "not bad. How are you?" Empty and banal chatter. Probably they have a list of things they are allowed to say most places. They wouldn't ask "what do you do?" unless a customer started the conversation and talked about work. So, what is not "palaver" except silence?

Jesus said people will have to give an account of every idle word but most of what people say is just idle words serving no purpose, talking about themselves when no one cares, pretending to care by asking questions and feigning concern, putting people down or bragging how they spend money or how important they are.