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rode_kater wrote: ↑Thu Nov 03, 2022 8:24 am
It's filler and different people have different ones. Sometimes even the word f*ck, though that's pretty rare these days and they usually grow out of it.
This particular filler, however, seems ubiquitous across everyone who speaks English, rather than it being used by a subset of people. That's part of why it annoys me so much. Most people don't grow out of their bad habits, either.
It is something you can unlearn though, mostly by relaxing a speaking more slowly so you don't need them. But they do act as an important social signal to others that you're not finished speaking.
They're useful mainly because people have this obnoxious tendency to finish others' sentences, or flat out interrupt them when they speak, so it only facilitates the need to talk faster and sloppier.
TSH wrote: ↑Thu Nov 03, 2022 6:15 am
So far, this thread has just been about the written language. What about spoken dialogue? That's even worse.
One irritant for me at present is people who prefix all their answers with "So..." when being interviewed on radio or TV. It doesn't do anything except to make them sound condescending.
I especially hate when people do the same with video/thread titles because it doesn't need to be there.
Having got that off my chest, I'd better add quickly that your opening "So", TSH, is not the same sort of so at all!
As far as spoken language, it's the "up talking" that gets me. When people end statements with upward inflection like it's a question. Every. Single. Time. It gets old quick, and sounds incredibly immature and lacking anything resembling confidence.
Dust wrote: ↑Sat Nov 05, 2022 1:16 am
As far as spoken language, it's the "up talking" that gets me. When people end statements with upward inflection like it's a question. Every. Single. Time. It gets old quick, and sounds incredibly immature and lacking anything resembling confidence.
In written language, it bugs me when people use periods as spaces in the middle of a sentence.
Dust wrote: ↑Sat Nov 05, 2022 1:16 am
As far as spoken language, it's the "up talking" that gets me. When people end statements with upward inflection like it's a question. Every. Single. Time. It gets old quick, and sounds incredibly immature and lacking anything resembling confidence.
In written language, it bugs me when people use periods as spaces in the middle of a sentence.
I think he did it for effect. The great pause between the phrase’s words “every single time”. Dramatic intent!
How would you write it and have the same effect? I’m curious. We all get particular with writing so I’m just wondering another way of doing it.
I feel that the rising intonation towards the end of an affirmative sentence, the "up-talking" in Dust's post, was fairly rare in the UK until about twenty years ago. It was the arrival of Neighbours (the soap) from Australia that popularised it, particularly in the speech of teenagers. But now that Neighbours is no longer on mainstream television, it is no longer spreading, and may even be declining, at least in my neck-of-the-woods. (Or it may be that I have become so habituated that I no longer notice!)
Dust wrote: ↑Sat Nov 05, 2022 1:16 am
As far as spoken language, it's the "up talking" that gets me. When people end statements with upward inflection like it's a question. Every. Single. Time. It gets old quick, and sounds incredibly immature and lacking anything resembling confidence.
In written language, it bugs me when people use periods as spaces in the middle of a sentence.
I think he did it for effect. The great pause between the phrase’s words “every single time”. Dramatic intent!
How would you write it and have the same effect? I’m curious. We all get particular with writing so I’m just wondering another way of doing it.
I did do it for effect, as you say. I also got a laugh when it turned out to be someone else's English grammar pet-peeve...
One annoying tick I've seen pop up within the last half of the 2010s is the phrase "a thing". Can someone please tell why this became "a thing" on the internet? I know what it means, and that only makes it worse, because it unnecessarily makes the language vague and contextual, rather than direct and unambiguous.
If you're noting how popular something is, or just pointing out that "thing" exists, why not just say that instead? Why make up inane, unclear phrases that doesn't directly state what something is? Slang really is less creative than it was decades ago.
EDIT: Fixed some typos because typing on mobile is a bit rough.
Last edited by TSH on Thu Mar 16, 2023 7:37 am, edited 2 times in total.
John Wayne swaggered up to the bar in a saloon and barked at the barman: 'Whiskey', whereupon the barman produced a glass and poured out a measure for Wayne to wrap his fingers round. Then Wayne ordered: 'Leave the Bottle!'
I believe he could demolish an entire bottle by just looking at it!
A bald-headed man goes into a bar with a frog growing out of the top of his head. The barman said: "How did that happen?" The frog replied: "I dunno -- it just began as a pimple on my bum."
There is no such thing as a normal person, only someone you don't know very well yet.
A man goes into a bar with his small pet newt called Tiny.
“A pint for me and a half for Tiny, please,” he says to the landlord.
The landlord asks, “Why do you name him Tiny?”
The man replies, “Because he’s my newt.”
I believe in offering every assistance short of actual help but then mainly just want to be left to be myself in all my difference and uniqueness.
