Is the word 'actually' driving you crazy?

I say it; family members say it; friends say it; newscasters and weather casters say it.  It's the word 'actually.'  And it appears to be ubiquitous.  My husband Wayne and I have recently started making fun of each other when we catch each other using 'actually.'

Now, I am the last person to criticize or complain about current language use or take a language-is-going-to-hell-in-a-hand basket stance.  But when I realized I was hearing 'actually' multiple times a day coming out of my own mouth as well as that of others, I became intrigued with investigating what exact meaning we were trying to convey ( if any).

Doing a quick Google search, I discovered that criticizing the frequent use of  'actually' turns out to be fairly common. One writer delved into psychology by suggesting that the term often comes out as an indication of passive aggressive behavior, a secret criticism that is saying, "You are wrong, I am right, and you are at least a little bit of an idiot."  Actually, the Worst Word on the Planet is 'Actually' The writer continues to condemn 'actually' as being unnecessary and a waste of space and recommends the use of 'really' or 'truly' instead.

Another writer warns listeners to be on the lookout for the word 'actually' because it may signal deception on the part of the speaker.  "Never say it again, if you can help it," is this writer's

advice. 1 Word that Immediately Kills Your Credibility

Still another writer takes a more practical viewpoint by coaching Portuguese speakers in the use of  'actually'  because of its frequent usage by native English speakers.

Web site for this title

This article identifies four different functions for 'actually':  thinking again, saying 'in fact,' expressing surprise, and softening a blow.  Giving a speaker the chance to rethink or correct a statement is identified as the most useful skill for Portuguese speakers learning English.  If  you say something that you don't mean and want to take it back, or if you say something in error and change your mind about it, 'actually' placed at the beginning of the sentence will do the trick.

Speaker No. 1

"Do you want to go to the beach at noon?"

Speaker No. 2

"Yes.  Actually, no. It's too hot then.

The author considers 'actually' to be discourse marker, an expression that functions more for holding a conversation together rather than for providing much additional meaning.

My personal opinion is that we overuse 'actually' because it appears that everyone around us is using it.  Most of us want to fit in and sound like others, if only to communicate more effectively with them.

Still, overusing 'actually' has become for me an embarrassing habit that I am going to try to remedy in the next several months.  Maybe a rubber band on the wrist that I snap every time I hear myself use the word?  Or a dollar in the kitty?  I hope dropping the 'actually' habit is easier than losing those elusive extra ten pounds.  

Can you catch a scammer by using linguistic clues?

Ah, what has the world become, I ask myself as I check my email account each day. So many people trying to sell me something, or solicit support for their causes, or assure me that they are doing a wonderful job of whatever it is they are doing. And that's not the worst of it! The scammers are the most blatant. Most suspicious emails are caught in the spam folder, but a few slip by every week and appear in my inbox. The Internet is indeed a dangerous place!

Lately I have been challenging myself to spot a piece of spam mail using language analysis skills. Granted, a good dose of common sense and a watchful eye will recognize most spam messages, but I have decided to do some linguistic sleuthing as well.

One day recently I saw an email from a unknown person that began, "Hello, dearest..." Are you kidding me? I have never been called "dearest" in my whole life. I'm trying to imagine the type of person who thought up that salutation. 

And then there was this recent message: "I have a legal business proposal for you, reply if interested." Why did the writer feel the need to add the adjective "legal"? Could it be that the business proposal is, in fact, just the opposite? And what's with the run-on sentence? Didn't the writer have a strict eighth grade English teacher who made students correct run-on sentences by using a semicolon or a new sentence? 

One sentence can tell so much about a writer. " I wait to hear from you as to give you more details." Way too formal and a bit awkward. And "as to" is a synonym for "regarding" or "concerning," neither of which would fit in this sentence. 

And then there are the lengthier messages, which provide more opportunities for language missteps. Some questionable language is italicized below: three run-on sentences, an incorrect verb form ("she have") and an expression that struck me as unusual in this context, "I guess."





Hello,


In a brief introduction, I am a doctor by profession, Dr. Thomas Brown, my patient asked me to send you this email. Her name is Anna Maria Cahill, she had a surgical operation that resulted in the removal of her left breast. From the diagnosis report, she will not live longer than two months. I guess her reason to contact you is about her legacy, she said she saw your profile on a social network. Please contact her directly via email to hear what she have for you. She is passionate about donating her wealth to charity.


Kindly contact her via this email address: (email address provided).


Best Regards


Dr. Thomas Brown






The challenges of writing a believable spam message remind us of the difficulties involved in communicating in writing, especially if the language you are writing in is not your native language. I wouldn't even attempt to send out an unsolicited message in a foreign language - it would end up in the spam folder every time.


Have you received any spam messages with language that arouses suspicion? I would enjoy hearing about them.

 

The Elusive Goal of Knowing Other Languages

"I would love to speak _______ (fill in the blank with any one of the world's approximately 6500 languages)" is a phrase I hear often, not only from other people, but also in my own head.  Few of us would pass up the opportunity to know another language if it were offered on a silver platter. But the road to language acquisition is not, in most cases, an easy one. Blessed are those who have the opportunity to learn more than one language in childhood, for they will not suffer!  Most adults, however, do find it difficult to navigate the world of foreign language learning.

How can we make language acquisition a more realistic goal, one we can reach and feel good about? Here are three suggestions.

Get more specific about goals. What do you mean when you say you want to learn Russian, for example?  Most people will answer the question by naively stating, "Well, everything." In the real world, that's probably not going to happen.  More doable goals may sound something like these:   learning enough Irish Gaelic to read signs on dreamed of vacation to Ireland, maintaining Spanish speaking ability to navigate hotels and restaurants in Mérida, México, getting one's ear attuned enough to French to enjoy all that Canadian train travel has to offer, or improving grammar knowledge of Portuguese as an intellectual activity.  (You may have already guessed that these sample examples come from my personal experiences.) 

Match goals to learning activities.  Once you have a specific goal in mind, the next step is to wade through the plethora of books, workbooks, CD's,  formal courses, online courses, social sites, and commercial learning packages available.  And the advice here is caveat emptor. 

I would be very wary of claims like this one!

  
I speak from experience because I am probably the world's greatest sucker when it comes to foreign language materials, always hoping to discover THE ONE.  Recently I have enjoyed using Duolingo, an online language learning program which is completely free.

I have lots of praise for Duolingo because, first of all, it is fun and easy to use.  And more importantly, it is motivating.  I am currently on a 770 day streak of getting points on Duolingo every single day.  I find the program great for language maintenance, which keeps me from experiencing "language attrition." in languages I have studied previously.  But for learning a new language from scratch, I feel the need to supplement the program with other materials.

   

Be realistic about spending time and money.  Take a close look at time commitments and budget to decide how much of each you are willing to devote to language study. A short study session every day is preferable to a longer session less frequently.  I spend about 30 minutes every day on Duolingo, working in four languages.  It has become part of a daily life routine. However, I have been less successful finding a good fit for a supplementary program in Irish Gaelic.  The books I have found on Kindle were not inspiring because I didn't want to wade through a lot of pronunciation and grammar rules at the beginning.  I did sign up for a free trial of an online Irish program, which looks promising, but I haven't yet decided if I want to spend the time and money to enroll.  

The experience of learning another language can be a disappointing failure or a transporting life experience, or anything in between.  I am inspired to continue with language acquisition  by the words of Nelson Mandela:

Irish accents have captivated me

What a treat to watch a historical drama and hear another dialect of English as a bonus.

I'm thinking of the TV series "Peaky Blinders," now in its third season on Netflix from the BBC.

One of the main characters in the first two episodes is Major Chester Campbell who plays a detective from the Royal Irish Constabulary, sent from Belfast, Northern Ireland to subdue a criminal gang in Birmingham, England (the "Peaky Blinders").  Major Campbell is a character I grew to despise as the series progressed, and I did not mourn when he was sent to his just reward.  I must admit though I did love it every time he came on the scene because of his lyrical, captivating Irish accent, even when he said truly horrible things. 

Major Campbell is played by the actor Sam Neill.  I read that Mr. Neill enlisted the help of two Northern Irish actors, James Nesbitt and Liam Neeson to coach him in using an Ulster Irish accent; however, Mr. Neill had to tone down his accent because the series was going to be distributed for American audiences.  What a shame!  As long as closed captioning remains available, I would have been intrigued by a "full strength" Irish English accent.

See if you can pick out Major Campbell's accent in the following YouTube trailer.

Another connection I have to Irish English is an interest in Irish Gaelic, which I get a daily dose of on the language learning site Duolingo.  Irish English is also known as Hiberno-English, a set of dialects spoken in the different regions of Ireland. And some of the features of Hiberno-English can be traced to Irish Gaelic.

Irish Gaelic does not use separate words for "yes" and "no" when answering questions.  Rather, a Gaelic speaker answers with the verb of the question, using a negative form of the verb if needed. As a result, Hiberno-English speakers use the words "yes" and "no" less frequently than speakers of other English dialects. Examples would be  "Are you leaving soon?  I am." "Is your car fixed?  It isn't."

Another difference in Hiberno-English and Standard English is the use of the verbs "bring" and "take."  (I must admit to finding these words confusing.)  In Standard English, direction is the deciding factor of which verb to use.  Going from here to there?  Use "take."  Coming from there to here?  Use "bring."  In Hiberno-English, "take"  is only used to describe transfer of possession from one person to another.  "Bring" is used in all other circumstance, whether coming or going.

Have you ever wished English had a plural form for "you"?  Irish English has one, based on the influence of Gaelic, which has both a singular you, "tú" and a plural you, "sibh."  The form is "ye" or sometimes "yous" or "youse."  (We Texans are just as inventive as the Irish with our "y'all.")

Great history.  Great language lessons.  Great entertainment.  The series "Peaky Blinders" provides it all. 

Do you need an excuse to watch Netflix?

I have discovered a justification for my somewhat decadent habit of watching British mystery series on Netflix.  If I spend a portion of viewing time analyzing British dialects along with trying to solve puzzles, surely I am furthering my knowledge of Linguistics, wouldn't you think?

"George Gently" is the latest crime series on Netflix that is encouraging me to consider English dialects of Great Britain.  The drama is set in the 1960's in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, located in Northeast England.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne

The two main characters are Detective Inspector George Gently and Detective Sergeant John Bacchus.

Gently  (left) and Bacchus (right)

George Gently is from London, but John Bacchus is a local boy who speaks a dialect of English called Geordie, especially when he is interviewing townspeople or speaking informally. Sometimes George has to rely on John for a translation of Geordie into Standard English in order to proceed with the investigation. I enjoy both characters; however, Bacchus' unusual accent adds to his charm (or could it be his Beatles-style haircut?)

The first difference I noticed in Geordie dialect was the use of rising intonation, with the speaker's voice going up at the end of sentences. This feature remindes me of melodic Scottish English, which I look forward to hearing when travels take me to Scotland.

I began to notice special vocabulary words used by Bacchus and other local residents, such as "nowt" (rhymes with "out') for the standard "nothing."  A female character on last night's show told Gently she had lost everything - her husband and her means of support - and now she had "nowt." And she was expecting a "bairn" (baby). Bacchus often uses a term of endearment, "pet" when addressing females (especially attractive ones!). I suppose "pet" would translate to "hon" or "honey" in Texas dialect.

The most striking feature of Geordian grammar I have observed so far is the use of the plural pronoun "us" in place of the singular pronoun "me" when referring to oneself.  John had made an illegal entry into a farmhouse to secure evidence when a young man arrived on a motorcycle and discovered his presence.  John later confesses to Gently, "They saw us in the house."  When I discussed the scene with my fellow Netflix-watcher and husband, Wayne, he said that he couldn't figure out why John had said "us." He thought maybe John was referring to the entire investigation. Amazing how one small word can lead our minds down different paths.

Although the Geordie dialect was virtually banned on British television until the 1960's and 1970's, a 2008 newspaper survey by The Scotsman found it to be "the most attractive in England."  And I would have to agree.

I look forward to spending more quality time watching BBC programs and learning more about British dialects.  And thank goodness for closed captioning to help me in my research!

Finding New Words in Old Books

Do you ever find yourself bored with using the same old words and expressions?  I do.  One of the joys of teaching a recent short course in "Golden Age Mysteries" was discovering words and expressions not common to modern American English. 

The Golden Age of Mystery writing occurred approximately between the two world wars of the 20th century, so the language used by Golden Age writers is almost a century old.  In these writings, language change as a gradual process is readily observable; after all, we can still read old mysteries with ease. But a few delightful words and expressions pop up in the writing that remind me that I am reading British literature of the early 20th century. And I may decide to incorporate some new ways of speaking into my modern American English, just for the novelty of it.

"Beastly."  What a potent adjective to describe our dislike of something or someone.  In Edgar Wallace's The Daffodil Mystery, Thornton Lyne is trying to seduce Odette Rider by referring to his poetry book.  "Most of it was written before I came into this beastly shop...." I may find "beastly" useful in complaining about the very unpleasant spring dust storms in my home town, and, even more important,  the expression may satisfy my need to use a stronger, less ladylike adjective.

"Rotten little bounder." Agatha Christie, in her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles,"   has John Cavendish so describe Alfred Inglethorp, an interloper who has married John's wealthy seventy year old stepmother.  Surely I can use "rotten little bounder" often to describe someone in my life who has done something I don't approve of.

"Peckish."  Now that is a word I'm sure I will use to describe my snacking habit near bedtime.  The memorable character Mr. Lugg in Margery Allingham's Look to the Lady offers food to Val Gyrth, a down and out young man, adding, "I always get peckish about this time o'night myself." 

"Sacked."  A strong alternative to "fired from a job."   Author Anthony Berkeley in Trial and Error has Ferrers tell Todhunter how morale is down in his publishing company because of many recent dismissals of personnel.  "Sacked!  Poor old Ogilvie's been sacked, to put it frankly...,"  And Todhunter is so impressed that he plans a murder! 

"Pinch."  A descriptive word for the crime of stealing.  "Pilfer" would be a synonym.  Dorothy L. Sayers makes humorous use of multiple meanings of pinch by having Pym's Advertising Agency reject the advertising slogan to accompany the image of a girl moving a cushion in a train compartment with the warning, "Don't let them pinch your seat." 

Language offers infinite possibilities to express ourselves in speaking and writing.  Why should we be confined to language of our present decade?  Creative use of language, drawing from many sources (yes, even slang) , encourages our minds to travel to new places and different eras.

The X in Mexico

La Equis

"La Equis" (the X) is a  public art project located in Ciudad Juárez, México.  The gigantic, almost 200 feet tall red X is visible for miles around.  Recently, my husband Wayne and I discussed the X as we were driving on the highway that borders our home town of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez. What was the significance of the X, we wondered?  And why is the name of our southern neighbor, Mexico, spelled with an "x" in the middle that is pronounced with the sound of the Spanish  "j"?  I distinctly remembered seeing "México" spelled  as "Méjico" sometime in my studies of the Spanish language.  I decided to investigate.

"La Equis" is brimming with artistic symbolism.  It was created in 2013 by Sebastián, an artist from Chihuahua, Mexico. The sculpture commemorates the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Chamizal Treaty, hailed as a model of international cooperation when in 1963 the United States returned a portion of land to Mexico.  The ownership of the land had been under dispute because of erratic changes in the path of the Rio Grande River. 

Even more symbolism can be read into this enormous red structure.  The population of Mexico is a fusion, or cross of Spanish and indigenous roots.  The fusion of the Christian cross and an Aztec religious symbol can also be imagined.  

But how did the letter "x" end up in the name of the country?  The answer is that Benito Juárez,

Benito Juárez

the first indigenous president of Mexico, changed the spelling of his country's name in the late 1800's to more accurately depict the roots of the Mexican people. And here is where the story gets complicated linguistically.

The "x"in Old Spanish represented a sound similar to an English "sh." Later, the sound evolved into a harder sound now usually represented by the Spanish letter "j" ( somewhat similar to an English "h"). But the letter "x" has been retained in certain words, especially those of foreign or indigenous roots, such as México (Aztec), Oaxaca (Nahuatl) and Texas (Caddo).

So where have I seen "Méjico," written with the letter "j" instead of an "x"?  Probably in writings from Spain, where the Royal Academy of Language gives the "j" spelling as the first spelling. 

Public art and linguistic history have combined in "La Equis" to offer a memorable symbol of the birth of Mexico, a New World nation.