At the End of the Day

 I consider myself somewhat of a word snob, where I nitpick about words that other people use and relentlessly hound MJ for certain words she pronounces wrong or adds an extra "s" to an expression when it doesn't belong. When I was in high school my English teacher told us to avoid using fillers and throat-clearing words as much as possible like "er," "um," and "like." This lesson awakened me to how much I used filler words, so I tried to avoid them as much as possible afterwards, but also made me conscious about how often other people used them. It's not that big a deal if it's used once or twice in a conversation between friends, but for long dialogues like a job interview or if someone is making a speech, it's definitely noticeable and becomes a distraction. That same English teacher told us that he once started counting how many "um's" that a speaker would use during his speech because the speaker used it so often, to the point where he forgot what the speaker was saying and only concentrated on the um's! This rubbed off on me, and I do feel that those speakers (definitely radio hosts, people on televsion, public figures) who can continue with a sentence without fillers have a very useful skill, and it does take some honing to get there. 

(Btw, differnet languages have different filler words; Japanese people use "eto" or "ano" before starting their main sentence, Korean people have "geulsse," and they look at you funny if you use the English er, um, uh's, so even more incenvtive to get rid of those fillers). 

Other pet peeves I have about the use of English are "Yea, no......" to start a sentence (I may be guilty of this too). It's a natural reaction to be agreeable and start with "Yea," but then also differentiate your new thought with what the speaker just said, thus "no," and all of a sudden both agreement and contradicting words are coming out together and starting the sentence off on a confusing foot. 

Oh yea, it's "regardless," for anyone who erroneously uses the word "irregardless," and I would like to be addressed as "sir" instead of the flippant uses of "buddy,"chief," "boss." 

I'm also conscious that too many conversations are just the brief "Thank you" now as a result of everyone understanding what needs to be done.......nothing really needs to be said other than "Thank you." At the grocery store, they ring up your items, you insert the credit card, they finish and say "thank you," and the only thing you say is "thank you" for their service. It's frustrating for me that our conversation skills are reduced to such a basic level without any nuance or sophistication. 

One of the more annoying phrases that I hear used (too) frequently nowadays is "at the end of the day." (Fitting that today is the end of the month of February). The phrase has innocent beginnings as a way to summarize everything and come to a conclusion after evaluating both the pros and cons of a situation and to put all the more detailed circumstance into perspective, (for example, "I worked hard to get a good grade on the test and was disappointed to get a B as my grade, but at the end of the day I'm happy with the effort I put into studying.") but the phrase has become abused to the point where every opinion is prefaced wth "at the end of the day" without any information about the situation. What happened to the morning, afternoon, and other times of the day in that calculus? You can't just skip to the conclusion of an essay without examining intro, body, and counterarguments! It also probably bothers me on another level where people follow the hip trends of the current mood, like virtue signaling or piling in on bitcoin or meme stocks like GME, without even thinking about it or assessing what the phrase actually means. 

I may have forgotten other word pet peeves that have agitated me over the years, ("What the actual fuck" comes to mind as nonsensical, profane, and unnecessary all at the same time) but it's not used nearly as often as the word "literally" in sentences where it's not supposed to be. Literally should not be used to provide emphasis of how extreme something or someone is, like "That dude is literally the worst person in the world" or "I literally just finished my homework." We need a new word for those situations, but literally should only be reserved for situations where words normally have a figurative meaning like "Finding a needle in a haystack." Literally should only be used if you are going to a barn or field with haystacks in them and you have to find a needle in them. The good news is that doesn't happen very often, the bad news is people use "literally" there all the time. I blame the internet, the new generation's loose standard for nventing new usage of words, and the emphasis on making everything extreme in society. It's (not literally) seriously driving me crazy! 

Luckily MJ doesn't use a lot of the phrases that are on my pet peeve list, which is important since she's practically (not literally) the only person I talk to in my daily life. Your cooperation is appreciated (instead of just "Thank you!") 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan