Colm O'Regan: What would we do without those words that mean nothing but are a vital crutch?

Colm O'Regan: 'We’ll just have to put up with it. It’s far from perfect/parrfect/purrfect, but that’s how language goes.' Picture: iStock

What would we do without them? The words that mean nothing but are a vital crutch when we just need to say something? 

I was reminded of this last week when complaining about the broadband being down. I don’t complain often. Usually, because what happens is I ring up all self-righteous, and it turns out I had a setting wrong, and actually it’s my fault. This time, the broadband was down.

“That’s perfect,” said the woman on the phone. Not perfect in the sense of flawless, but perfect in the sense of nothing at all — a verbal nod, a noise customer service agents make to show they’ve heard you and are moving on regardless of whether what you said was, in fact, perfect. Like it clearly wasn’t perfect. The internet wasn’t working. It has become punctuation.

And it’s mutating. I’m hearing "parfict" now, said with a little theatrical flourish, and the truly committed go all the way to "purrfect".

If the various states of perfection are not your bag, you could try "100%", which has quietly replaced "yes". Where did it come from? I am going to talk shite for a second, but maybe (which itself is a long-winded way of saying ‘maybe’) it has something to do with emojis. The 100% emoji followed the growth of the 100%, but maybe it’s reinforcing it.

Did it come from sport, where everyone is giving 110% on the field? So if 110% merely means making an effort, a simple yes is 100%?

"Appreciate that" is the new "thanks". When I heard it first, I felt I’d really changed this person’s life with the small thing I’d done for them. But now I know it’s just a noise they are making with their mouth. We will never know what true appreciation looks like.

"It’s that thing of" is another one, I said it myself yesterday. I mean like, (that’s another filler phrase), technically, (another word gradually losing meaning) it WAS that thing of but really I could have done without it.

Some of these are what linguists call discourse markers (sometimes called pragmatic markers or discourse particles). This covers words like "well", "so", "like", "you know", "right?", "I mean", and "anyway", that don’t add any meaning but instead manage the flow of conversation, or check in with the person you are talking with to make sure they’re still with you, "jagetme?".

There are a few types. The ums and ahs and ers are filled pauses (or fillers). Tag questions are the "right?", "isn’t it?", "you know?", or "janormean?" that invite agreement or confirmation. 

Hedges refer to words that soften a claim, like "sort of", "kind of", or "I think". So that people don’t think you have notions or are up your own hoop.

Sentence-final particles are the term linguists use where people put unnecessary words at the end. In Dublin, it’s "but". In Cork, it’s "like".

They evolve over time. The English used to say "I say" all the time. We used to say "faith". I suspect the next wave is already in the house, because my own children are bringing it home. They’ve started saying "POV" — point of view — out loud, in conversation, because every second video they watch is filmed from one. "POV: you forgot your lunch".

Said often enough, the acronym stops being shorthand and starts replacing the phrase outright. I give it five years before "point of view" sounds old-fashioned. Like saying "verily forsooth methinks". P-O-V will just be a word.

And we’ll just have to put up with it. It’s far from perfect/parrfect/purrfect, but that’s how language goes.

"100%" will go too. To be replaced by some other thing that my children in their dotage will think is an abomination. It’s that thing of ‘life’, innit. We say it best when we say nothing at all.