The overuse and misuse of certain adverbs

[Carl]

Local greetings are another interesting linguistic phenomena. When I went to the UK, I'm a fair dinkum Aussie mate y'know :) , I was stumped by people instead of using a "hi" would say "all right?" Seems to skip the "how are you" entirely and basically leaves you less chance to say you're not alright. Although Australia's cliche greeting being "gidday mate" isn't much better, it could always be a bad day.

Yeah, and there are very few acceptable responses! "Alright?" isn't actually a question up here, its more of a lead-on to an actual question.

"Alright lad!" -- "Alright, hows it goin?" -- "Not bad"

 

[Yas]

This is very interesting!

In Spanish we call this filler words "muletillas". It means something like "little crutch", so it is "something that helps you through a speech or conversation".
The words that we often overuse in this way depends a lot on the place, being different in Latin America and Spain...
Here in Paraguay, and I think in Argentina as well, as we share a lot in language and culture... we use "verdad" (true), "o sea" (something like 'I mean'), and one that always intrigues me: "este" (which means something like 'this...').

I guess it is interesting to see that maybe there's a pattern in every language, for example our "verdad" (true) can be compared to "really, actually, etc..." and I hear a lot of English speaking overusing the "I mean" phrase as well... I'm trying to think if there are similar phrases in French...

In Spanish there's also a misuse of "literally" and "practically". I noticed that sometimes this words come out of my mouth just because I learned the use of them by osmosis as Ailén said, but I don't really think they should be used in whatever I'm saying... especially with "practically".

I first noticed the overuse of "like" when I was sharing a house with a group of US students. My impression was that it relates to a culture largely influenced by acting. For instance, instead of saying "John said: hello", they would say "John was like: hello". So, instead of a narration including what someone said, one recreates the action of that person saying it.
Hope is makes sense.

It makes sense for me and I think it's a very interesting thought. :)
It is very interesting how language shows some aspects of a particular worldview that we are usually unaware of...
In PNL there is a lot of attention given to the type of words a person uses, because they say that it reflects some characteristics of how the person perceives reality. If I remember correctly, they make categories according to the tendency of speaking with visual, auditory or kinesthetic words.

 

[Sol Logos]

Yeah, and there are very few acceptable responses! "Alright?" isn't actually a question up here, its more of a lead-on to an actual question.

"Alright lad!" -- "Alright, hows it goin?" -- "Not bad"

Got it! Since I usually replied: "yep I'm alright", now the awkward looks I got back in return make sense! After a few of those, I just said "alright" back, seemed to work :)

Here in Paraguay, and I think in Argentina as well, as we share a lot in language and culture... we use "verdad" (true)

In Sydney, there's a few subcultures that use "true" too. Its used as a response to affirm what the other person is saying. Then not to mention swearing filling words everywhere, especially the "f" word "that f***ken little f***k took my f***ken bike" but maybe that's different it's more about expressing some emotion...

 

[Nienna]

My peeves with my own words include "basically" and "actually." "Basically" is worse because far too often the statement isn't even "basic" and I know that. I seem to use it as a shortcut for avoiding saying what I mean. "Actually" is just annoying, and maybe I use it to be annoying. "Like," on the other hand, is a word I like, at least when I am speaking. It's right up there with "uh." I'm not giving either one of those up.

Actually, I use these words, like, totally all of the time, too. Wow! I never really realized just how much until this thread. Basically, this is really a very interesting subject, like Wow! Ya know, this gives me a lot to think about. It, basically, ya know, is really something to think about - really.

 

[Gaby]

Actually, I use these words, like, totally all of the time, too. Wow! I never really realized just how much until this thread. Basically, this is really a very interesting subject, like Wow! Ya know, this gives me a lot to think about. It, basically, ya know, is really something to think about - really.

This forum is my number one English teacher. So I totally use these words too. I learn by example

No pressure! It's like totally cool!

 

[aaronfransen]

Sweet. Because my favourite pet peeve is using words for meanings that aren't what they mean. Like sweet.
:D

 

[Don Genaro]

Think I'll throw in a few "Irish-isms" so...
"Ya know what I mean like?"

Apparently they use different expressions across the country - around Donegal they add "hey" onto the end of their sentences so you can get asked: "Where were you hey?" or "That's true hey."

Meanwhile down south in Cork, they're known for adding so to their sentence endings. So when you go into a shop don't be surprised if they say "That'll be €2.50 so."

I've just had my dinner can be "I'm just after me dinner" or "I'm just after havin' me dinner."

Also, I remember as a kid being reminded by my mother that "amn't" is not a word - I don't know if this is an Irish thing or applies to English speaking children in general. E.g. "You're wrong" - "I amn't!" - I even remember "amn't I not?" instead of "aren't I?"

Another thing I've noticed is that when asked a question, we have a tendency to reply by repeating the auxiliar verb without using "yes" or "no".

For example: Q: You're Irish, aren't you? A: I am!
or Q: You can swim, can't you? A: I can!

Oh, and as far as I can tell, we only say "Top of the morning to ya" when we're in American movies :D

Now, where's me lucky charms...?

 

[mada85]

Local greetings are another interesting linguistic phenomena. When I went to the UK, I'm a fair dinkum Aussie mate y'know :) , I was stumped by people instead of using a "hi" would say "all right?" Seems to skip the "how are you" entirely and basically leaves you less chance to say you're not alright. Although Australia's cliche greeting being "gidday mate" isn't much better, it could always be a bad day.

Yeah, and there are very few acceptable responses! "Alright?" isn't actually a question up here, its more of a lead-on to an actual question.

"Alright lad!" -- "Alright, hows it goin?" -- "Not bad"

Well, down here its 'Awrite?' or 'Awrite mate?' or 'Y'awrite mate?'. The common reply is something like 'Yer' or 'Y'awrite?'. After 20 years here I've learned to use 'Awrite' as a greeting so as to blend in with the natives. I'm sure they can't see through my cunning disguise mwahaha . . .

 

[Jacques]

My irritant is when someone says I have a 'quick question'. How can you define 'quick' when you've already started the time clock just saying 'I have a quick question'?

And just as bad, "Can I ask you a question?"

Well, when someone says that to me: "Can I ask you a question?", I always answer "Yes and you have just done it!"

 

[Rich]

Well, when someone says that to me: "Can I ask you a question?", I always answer "Yes and you have just done it!"

Me too

 

[Renaissance]

Here's an interesting article on fillers like 'like' and other trends such as 'uptalk' and 'vocal fry'. It describes their usage, growth and how they may relate to social interaction.

"They’re, Like, Way Ahead of the Linguistic Currrrve"
_http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/science/young-women-often-trendsetters-in-vocal-patterns.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

From Valley Girls to the Kardashians, young women have long been mocked for the way they talk.

Whether it be uptalk (pronouncing statements as if they were questions? Like this?), creating slang words like “ @#!*% ’ ” and “ridic,” or the incessant use of “like” as a conversation filler, vocal trends associated with young women are often seen as markers of immaturity or even stupidity.

Right?

But linguists — many of whom once promoted theories consistent with that attitude — now say such thinking is outmoded. Girls and women in their teens and 20s deserve credit for pioneering vocal trends and popular slang, they say, adding that young women use these embellishments in much more sophisticated ways than people tend to realize.

“A lot of these really flamboyant things you hear are cute, and girls are supposed to be cute,” said Penny Eckert, a professor of linguistics at Stanford University. “But they’re not just using them because they’re girls. They’re using them to achieve some kind of interactional and stylistic end.”

The latest linguistic curiosity to emerge from the petri dish of girl culture gained a burst of public recognition in December, when researchers from Long Island University published a paper about it in The Journal of Voice. Working with what they acknowledged was a very small sample — recorded speech from 34 women ages 18 to 25 — the professors said they had found evidence of a new trend among female college students: a guttural fluttering of the vocal cords they called “vocal fry.”

A classic example of vocal fry, best described as a raspy or croaking sound injected (usually) at the end of a sentence, can be heard when Mae West says, “Why don’t you come up sometime and see me,” or, more recently on television, when Maya Rudolph mimics Maya Angelou on “Saturday Night Live.”

Not surprisingly, gadflies in cyberspace were quick to pounce on the study — or, more specifically, on the girls and women who are frying their words. “Are they trying to sound like Kesha or Britney Spears?” teased The Huffington Post, naming two pop stars who employ vocal fry while singing, although the study made no mention of them. “Very interesteeeaaaaaaaaang,” said Gawker.com, mocking the lazy, drawn-out affect.

Do not scoff, says Nassima Abdelli-Beruh, a speech scientist at Long Island University and an author of the study. “They use this as a tool to convey something,” she said. “You quickly realize that for them, it is as a cue.”

Other linguists not involved in the research also cautioned against forming negative judgments.

“If women do something like uptalk or vocal fry, it’s immediately interpreted as insecure, emotional or even stupid,” said Carmen Fought, a professor of linguistics at Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif. “The truth is this: Young women take linguistic features and use them as power tools for building relationships.”

The idea that young women serve as incubators of vocal trends for the culture at large has longstanding roots in linguistics. As Paris is to fashion, the thinking goes, so are young women to linguistic innovation.

“It’s generally pretty well known that if you identify a sound change in progress, then young people will be leading old people,” said Mark Liberman, a linguist at the University of Pennsylvania, “and women tend to be maybe half a generation ahead of males on average.”

Less clear is why. Some linguists suggest that women are more sensitive to social interactions and hence more likely to adopt subtle vocal cues. Others say women use language to assert their power in a culture that, at least in days gone by, asked them to be sedate and decorous. Another theory is that young women are simply given more leeway by society to speak flamboyantly.

But the idea that vocal fads initiated by young women eventually make their way into the general vernacular is well established. Witness, for example, the spread of uptalk, or “high-rising terminal.”

Starting in America with the Valley Girls of the 1980s (after immigrating from Australia, evidently), uptalk became common among young women across the country by the 1990s.

In the past 20 years, uptalk has traveled “up the age range and across the gender boundary,” said David Crystal, a longtime professor of linguistics who teaches at Bangor University in Wales. “I’ve heard grandfathers and grandmothers use it,” he said. “I occasionally use it myself.”

Even an American president has been known to uptalk. “George W. Bush used to do it from time to time,” said Dr. Liberman, “and nobody ever said, ‘Oh, that G.W.B. is so insecure, just like a young girl.’ ”

The same can be said for the word “like,” when used in a grammatically superfluous way or to add cadence to a sentence. (Because, like, people tend to talk this way when impersonating, like, teenage girls?) But in 2011, Dr. Liberman conducted an analysis of nearly 12,000 phone conversations recorded in 2003, and found that while young people tended to use “like” more often than older people, men used it more frequently than women.

And, actually? The use of “like” in a sentence, “apparently without meaning or syntactic function, but possibly as emphasis,” has made its way into the Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition — this newspaper’s reference Bible — where the example given is: “It’s, like, hot.” Anyone who has seen a television show featuring the Kardashian sisters will be more than familiar with this usage.

“Like” and uptalk often go hand in hand. Several studies have shown that uptalk can be used for any number of purposes, even to dominate a listener. In 1991, Cynthia McLemore, a linguist at the University of Pennsylvania, found that senior members of a Texas sorority used uptalk to make junior members feel obligated to carry out new tasks. (“We have a rush event this Thursday? And everyone needs to be there?”)

Dr. Eckert of Stanford recalled a study by one of her students, a woman who worked at a Jamba Juice and tracked instances of uptalking customers. She found that by far the most common uptalkers were fathers of young women. For them, it was “a way of showing themselves to be friendly and not asserting power in the situation,” she said.

Vocal fry, also known as creaky voice, has a long history with English speakers. Dr. Crystal, the British linguist, cited it as far back as 1964 as a way for British men to denote their superior social standing. In the United States, it has seemingly been gaining popularity among women since at least 2003, when Dr. Fought, the Pitzer College linguist, detected it among the female speakers of a Chicano dialect in California.

A 2005 study by Barry Pennock-Speck, a linguist at the University of Valencia in Spain, noted that actresses like Gwyneth Paltrow and Reese Witherspoon used creaky voice when portraying contemporary American characters (Ms. Paltrow used it in the movie “Shallow Hal,” Ms. Witherspoon in “Legally Blonde”), but not British ones in period films (Ms. Paltrow in “Shakespeare in Love,” Ms. Witherspoon in “The Importance of Being Earnest”).

So what does the use of vocal fry denote? Like uptalk, women use it for a variety of purposes. Ikuko Patricia Yuasa, a lecturer in linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, called it a natural result of women’s lowering their voices to sound more authoritative.

It can also be used to communicate disinterest, something teenage girls are notoriously fond of doing.

“It’s a mode of vibration that happens when the vocal cords are relatively lax, when sublevel pressure is low,” said Dr. Liberman. “So maybe some people use it when they’re relaxed and even bored, not especially aroused or invested in what they’re saying.”

But “language changes very fast,” said Dr. Eckert of Stanford, and most people — particularly adults — who try to divine the meaning of new forms used by young women are “almost sure to get it wrong.”

“What may sound excessively ‘girly’ to me may sound smart, authoritative and strong to my students,” she said.

 

[herondancer]

Just have to through "eh" into the pot as the Canadian contribution. It also creeps up on you by osmosis, as it can fill in for just about any sort of conversational need. Like, that's cool, eh?

http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/6362-wright.htm

10 Different Constructions Of Eh

The dictionaries’ varying definitions reveal that while linguists may agree that eh is Canadian, they disagree over what type of eh is Canadian. The dictionaries cite one of two main uses: eh as a question tag or the narrative eh. Gold’s 2004 survey on the Canadian eh helps to clarify the matter by asking Canadian speakers if and how they use eh. Both individually and collectively the dictionaries (listed above) do not come close to citing all the different nuances of eh. Gold’s survey provides the most extensive list of the different variations. Although the survey provides useful information on Canadians’ use of and attitude toward eh, there are some limitations to this method of data collection. As Gold explains, “one problem with this method of self-reporting is that many speakers are unaware of their own use of eh” (3). Speakers are especially unaware of their use of the narrative eh because it often serves as a comma, question mark or an unconscious pause (similar to “um,” “like,” or “ah”). The following table lists the ten categories (and twelve examples) used in Gold’s survey:

TYPE OF EH SAMPLE SENTENCE

1. Statement of opinion Nice day, eh?

2. Statements of fact It goes over here, eh?

3. Commands Open the window, eh? Think about it, eh?

4. Exclamations What a game, eh?

5. Questions What are they trying to do, eh?

6. To mean ‘pardon’ Eh? What did you say?

7. In fixed expressions Thanks, eh? I know, eh?

8. Insults You’re a real snob, eh?

9. Accusations You took the last piece, eh?

10. Telling a story [the narrative eh] This guy is up on the 27th floor, eh? then he gets out on the ledge, eh . . .

Bonus Bob and Doug MacKenzie clips. :P _https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04u58ifxmRA
_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y84Z4MbYWxM
_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bougw9J7Wmg

 

[Nienna]

Just have to through "eh" into the pot as the Canadian contribution. It also creeps up on you by osmosis, as it can fill in for just about any sort of conversational need. Like, that's cool, eh?

Yes, I've found this "eh" thing to be contagious, at least for me. Twenty-some odd years ago I worked for a company that was run by a Canadian (I lived in Washington state at the time). He used the word "eh" a lot, and I picked it up. So much so that I still find myself using it from time to time now. :)

 

[tempo]

In Britain (Not sure about other English speaking places), I've noticed that people in general these days are overusing and misusing certain adverbs (those words that tend to end in -ly). Every other word in people's conversations seems to be words like "literally" or "basically".

One example would be a guy who did somone a big favour and this person who was helped said "you're literally my knight in shining armour!" NO! figuratively, yes but this nice helper was not donned in polished metal, mounted on a steed and carrying a sword.

I was thinking that, instead of misuse, this might be a case of "literally" taking on a new function or added meaning. The thought I was having was that, with an increased use of metaphors to describe people or things, the metaphors become more common and generic. So, telling someone "you're my knight in shining armor" does not hold much sincerity behind it anymore. The use of "literally" with a metaphor such as this is then being used to add emphasis or sincerity to the generic metaphor.

So the underlying semantics seem to be saying "you are literally the embodiment of what a knight in shining armor represents", which could be whatever aspect of "a knight in shining armor" they are referring to, based on the context of the situation.

 

[Nawd]

Literally this was like a totally awesome thread, you know? Because basically I use, like this language a lot. It seems like others do too, eh?

(Fun thread). ;)