Actually, you actually have an actually virus in your head and you actually need to get rid of it.
Actually, you actually have an actually virus in your head and you actually need to get rid of it.
Is your speech pattern infected with the actually virus?
I have noticed that this virus is rampantly out of control. It is very much, akin to when the like virus was out of control 15 years ago. Like, you know when like, people, like, inserted like everywhere… where it like didn’t belong in a sentence…
If you find yourself using the word, “actually,” with frequency, I would invite you to consider how it actually makes you look ignorant.
With no disparagement meant in this post, I have watched numerous conversations transpire in which the other party uses the word actually throughout their entire explanation. When you do, the other party is aware of the fact that you are infested with this virus, and it makes them look at you and wonder why you cannot get this one simple word under control.
ac·tu·al·ly
adverb
used to emphasize that something someone has said or done is surprising.
The word actually is meant to dispel another person feeling incredulous at what you just told them. It’s used because there are things you might say where somebody might feel as if that could not possibly be true and so, by inserting the word actually into the sentence, you are adding your own credential to the authentication of whatever it is that you are saying. So if you say to somebody, we actually released this technology, what you are saying in the subtext is “I know you do not believe that we could have possibly released this technology, but we did!”
If you insert the word actually throughout your entire discussion, any person who understands the word, is really hearing that you are trying to reinforce the credible nature of what it is that you were saying, and by your choice of repeating this word, actually, you are actually accomplishing exactly the opposite.
When my children were infested with the like virus, I tried an experiment with them, and I gave them twenty $1 bills and said that they were free to keep them but every single time they use the word like they would have to give me one of the dollars back. Then I would ask them to tell me about their day. Within 10 minutes they had lost the $20, one by one. But what came from that, was an awareness of how often that word shows up in their speech pattern, and eventually they were able to eradicate it.
My mother was “Henry Higgens,” a stickler for grammar, and she would readily correct me when I was wrong. This was both a blessing and a curse, in that it did teach me the proper use of the language, but it also made me hyper aware of when others are misusing the language.
So, I am actually putting up this post to make you actually aware of how actually ignorant you sound if you are actually incapable of removing the word actually from your speech patterns.
No, really!
Happy Sunday!
https://brianweiner.com
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