So basically, I actually want to literally say that..

[erratio]

This was inspired by a column in the SMH where they had a short paragraph complaining about how these days everyone's peppering their speech with "like", "you know", and "actually","basically", and "literally"

Does anyone have any theories on this? And why those words in particular?

My own theory centres around the way that none of these words actually (there I go again) add much meaningful content to a sentence. Add that to the way that socially it's become much less acceptable to stop and think before speaking, you're expected to reply RIGHT NOW even if you have nothing meaningful thought up yet, and so you start inserting all sorts of qualifiers and extra words just to give you time to think of something relevant to add. I'm still not sure why those particular words, although I think it may have something to do with the way it's easy to put a rising intonation on them..

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

According to Ryan Heath in his wonderful Please Just Fuck Off, It's Our Turn Now:

"Besides, young people misuse English as a defence mechanism as much as we do it out of ignorance. I say 'like', 'seriously', and 'literally' as a protection against the lies that are pumped into me from every single angle, every day. We are so unused to truth and transparency and so surrounded by fantasy that we qualify our statements by re-emphasising that our statements are not like those falsehoods. He was 'literally' about to walk in front of a car, because we've all seen a hundred movies where people look like they die, but it's all a trick."

It's an attempt to distinguish between actuality and metaphor, and emphasize a personal experience, pushing it out of the context of the ocean of false, referenced, and simulated experience our lives are part of.

I think we also speak more and more in reference in metaphor - like the social exchanges you can now have completely in family guy quotes - and when you want to get a piece of literal, plaintext, raw information concerning actual physical events that took place, you need to mark that out.

As for 'like', everyone under 34 says 'like'. Who knows why? Hundreds of after school specials from the 70's poisoning our speech with hippy adjuncts as children?

-Ben

[axl12.livejournal.com]

it's basically just to emphasize stuff, like, you know!