{"id":507148,"date":"2026-06-19T02:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T02:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/507148\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T02:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T02:13:08","slug":"colm-oregan-what-would-we-do-without-those-words-that-mean-nothing-but-are-a-vital-crutch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/507148\/","title":{"rendered":"Colm O’Regan: What would we do without those words that mean nothing but are a vital crutch?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What would we do without them? The words that mean nothing but are a vital crutch when we just need to say something?\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was reminded of this last week when complaining about the broadband being down. I don\u2019t 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\u2019s my fault. This time, the broadband was down.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s perfect,\u201d said the woman on the phone. Not perfect in the sense of flawless, but perfect in the sense of nothing at all \u2014 a verbal nod, a noise customer service agents make to show they\u2019ve heard you and are moving on regardless of whether what you said was, in fact, perfect. Like it clearly wasn\u2019t perfect. The internet wasn\u2019t working. It has become punctuation.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s mutating. I\u2019m hearing “parfict” now, said with a little theatrical flourish, and the truly committed go all the way to “purrfect”.<\/p>\n

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 \u2018maybe\u2019) it has something to do with emojis. The 100% emoji followed the growth of the 100%, but maybe it\u2019s reinforcing it.<\/p>\n

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%?<\/p>\n

“Appreciate that” is the new “thanks”. When I heard it first, I felt I\u2019d really changed this person\u2019s life with the small thing I\u2019d done for them. But now I know it\u2019s just a noise they are making with their mouth. We will never know what true appreciation looks like.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s that thing of” is another one, I said it myself yesterday. I mean like, (that\u2019s another filler phrase), technically, (another word gradually losing meaning) it WAS that thing of but really I could have done without it.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t add any meaning but instead manage the flow of conversation, or check in with the person you are talking with to make sure they\u2019re still with you, “jagetme?”.<\/p>\n

There are a few types. The ums and ahs and ers are filled pauses (or fillers). Tag questions are the “right?”, “isn\u2019t it?”, “you know?”, or “janormean?” that invite agreement or confirmation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hedges refer to words that soften a claim, like “sort of”, “kind of”, or “I think”. So that people don\u2019t think you have notions or are up your own hoop.<\/p>\n

Sentence-final particles are the term linguists use where people put unnecessary words at the end. In Dublin, it\u2019s “but”. In Cork, it\u2019s “like”.<\/p>\n

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\u2019ve started saying “POV” \u2014 point of view \u2014 out loud, in conversation, because every second video they watch is filmed from one. “POV: you forgot your lunch”.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

And we\u2019ll just have to put up with it. It\u2019s far from perfect\/parrfect\/purrfect, but that\u2019s how language goes.<\/p>\n

“100%” will go too. To be replaced by some other thing that my children in their dotage will think is an abomination. It\u2019s that thing of \u2018life\u2019, innit. We say it best when we say nothing at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What would we do without them? The words that mean nothing but are a vital crutch when we…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[74266,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-507148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-colm-o","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}