# Annoying “new speak” that you’ve managed to adopt into your vocabulary… **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 1, 2021, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621 "2021-11-01T11:45:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2021, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/81 "2021-11-03T18:33:23Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > But the OP asked about phrases we dislike but use anyway. I watch a lot of British panel shows on YouTube, and have noticed some Briticisms creeping into my lexicon - _bugger_ , _wanker_ , _whip-round_ . I have started, quite deliberately, referring to our garbage cans as “the bins,” and to the garbage collectors who come around every week as “the bin men.” My wife just shakes her head. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2021, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/82 "2021-11-03T19:22:33Z")
> [@alovem](#): > > Scroll down a bit and you’ll see he confirms it. > > > Since Homer was my father’s name, and I thought Simpson was a funny name in that it had the word “simp” in it, which is short for “simpleton”—I just went with it. > > [Matt Groening Reveals the Location of the Real Springfield | Arts & Culture| Smithsonian Magazine](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/matt-groening-reveals-the-location-of-the-real-springfield-60583379/) “He” as in Matt Groening? He’s older than me, almost like 70, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Tarataratara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Tarataratara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tarataratara)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2021, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/83 "2021-11-03T21:39:18Z")
> [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](#): > > As far as, like, filler words, like, I try not to use “like” and, you know, “you know” I have also tried to get rid of you know and have replaced it with “of course.” That’s probably no better. ---
**Author:** ![Yodalicious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yodalicious/32/8195_2.png) [@Yodalicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yodalicious)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2021, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/84 "2021-11-03T21:44:24Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > This phrase-opening use of “So …” is a useful shibboleth (anti-shibboleth?) to roughly determine someone’s self-identified generation (e.g. Boomer, Gen X, Millenial, etc.). To my experience, “So …” is a fairly reliable marker for someone _not_ being a Boomer or Gen Xer. So, my experience is different 🙂 I’m GenX, and use “so” at the beginning of some sentences. My GenX brothers, and most of my GenX friends do the same. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2021, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/85 "2021-11-03T22:46:52Z")
> [@Yodalicious](#): > > So, my experience is different 🙂 I’m GenX, and use “so” at the beginning of some sentences. My GenX brothers, and most of my GenX friends do the same. Yeah, same. My cohort is all on the younger side of GenX, but we’re nevertheless in the range, and use So… all the time. Maybe even more often than younger crowds. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2021, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/86 "2021-11-03T23:06:09Z")
Thanks to some Youtubers I follow, I’ve adopted the adjective “boujie” (meaning “upscale” or “pricey”). I’m not sure of the spelling – it’s pronounced “BOO-zhee.” YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/87 "2021-11-04T01:58:31Z")
I always assumed this had something to do with the {insert your Liberal Arts elective} word “Bourgeois”, although I guess it wouldn’t make sense based on its definition being “middle class”. ETA: Apparently urbandictionary made the same connection: [Urban Dictionary: boujie](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=boujie) ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/88 "2021-11-04T15:12:27Z")
> [@Yodalicious](#): > > So, my experience is different 🙂 I’m GenX, and use “so” at the beginning of some sentences. My GenX brothers, and most of my GenX friends do the same. Out of curiosity: Have you done it for decades, or mostly over the last 10-15 years? Did you use the “So …” lead in, say, as high-schoolers? EDIT: “So …” could also be a regionalism that spread out later. I’m sure there’s some bleed-through between broad cohorts. Some people are a young 40 or 50, and other people of those ages kind of have “ossified” minds (I’m one of the ossified folks). I’m now curious if there’s a correlation between older folks adopting younger folks’ speech habits, and things like “_adoption of up-to-date fashion/hairstyles_” and “_appreciation of right-now popular music_”. Probably some fairly complicated and multifactorial dynamic at work. (_Circa 1969 … were there people who unequivocally presented as “hippies”, and yet were already middle-aged? I’m sure there were._) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/89 "2021-11-04T15:24:42Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Out of curiosity: Have you done it for decades, or mostly over the last 10-15 years? Did you use the “So …” lead in, say, as high-schoolers? For me – I’m 46 – it feels like something I’ve always used, but it’s really hard to say, because if it did start 10-15 years ago, that long enough for it to feel like I’ve always been doing it. The vast majority of people in my social circle are Gen Xers, and I’ve never been around large groups of Millennials or Zoomers regularly to adopt their habits, so if I got it from anywhere else, it would have been media. Well, I just remembered I have some letter transcriptions saved on my hard drive. I have one from October 24, 1998, with the first paragraph: “So, what’s the future got in store for Ms. XXXX?” Second paragraph starts: “So here I am in a little cabin just outside Bakonybel in Western Hungary.” A few sentences later: “So I was invited by Eszter, this girl from my German class …” I think those all qualify as examples suiting the usage of “so” you’re looking for, right? ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/90 "2021-11-04T15:43:27Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I think those all qualify as examples suiting the usage of “so” you’re looking for, right? It’s more of a spoken-word thing than something that comes across in print IMHO. It’s not simply the use of “_So …_” to open a sentence. There a fall in pitch and kind of a drag/lull/pause in the utterance after the “_So …_”. I’ll make a comparison to another spoken-word trend that was prominent at the turn of the millenium: The sarcastic “_Could [someone] BE any more [adjective]?_” construction, with heavy emphasis on “BE” and a hint of a pause after the “BE”. Example: _“Could you BE any more dense?”_ My recall is that this got widely popularized from the sitcom _Friends_, though I’m sure many Dopers can and will attest to having heard/used the construction before the show debuted in 1994 (after all, the writers got it from somewhere). And I’m sure there are legion examples of similar constructions in English-language literature, film, broadcast media, etc. going back centuries. But it wasn’t a commonly-heard thing coast to coast until _Friends_ got popular – at least to my memory. Anyway, the lilting spoken word “_So …_” is kind of like that. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/91 "2021-11-04T15:49:24Z")
Sure, but my letter was written in a colloquial, speaking-voice style, so it reflected my speech patterns. The first sentence definitely would have been spoken as “Soooo,” with a fall and a pause in my head. (The first actually notates the pause with a comma.) The middle and last one might have been spoken straight through or they may have had a similar pause and fall intended in them. I know I must have other letters around where I notated the type of “so” I think you’re looking for as “So…” like “So…what’s new with you?” ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/92 "2021-11-04T16:09:30Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I know I must have other letters around where I notated the type of “so” I think you’re looking for as “So…” like **“So…what’s new with you?”** Expressions like the bolded are familiar and don’t come off as trendy new-speak. Here’s a nonce conversation that gets more to what I thought the OP was going for. A: “Hey, thanks for coming over to feed my cat when I was out of town. Did she give you any trouble?” B: “So … once when I came over, she was hiding under the bed and wouldn’t come get her food. But when I came back the next day to feed her again, the food was gone so I guess she ate it.” A. “Yeah, she’ll be shy like that sometimes. Hey – you want to go to lunch in a little bit?” B: “So … I have to finish up this TPS report for my boss. But I can meet up right after that.” A. “Cool. You think by 12:30?” B. “So … it’s kind of a complicated report, but if I try and hurry up, I should be done by then.” … Now that I’ve written this up, it looks like the new-speak “So …” thing is most commonly found in response to direct questions. Perhaps the declarative “So …” (like in your written-word examples above) is a different thing. Where’s a good sociolinguist when you need one? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/93 "2021-11-04T17:42:30Z")
All those sound perfectly normal to me; however, I don’t have any sound recordings from myself from the 90s to confirm, but it doesn’t feel to me like something new I picked up. I could be wrong – like I said, I’ve been using it for so long that it’s hard to tell when it started. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/94 "2021-11-05T00:20:48Z")
> [@solost](#): > > I’ve heard these from my kids too, especially my older son who watches YouTube videos all the time. He also uses the term ‘simp’ a lot, which he says means a weak, beta male who is submissive to the women in his life. But the way he applies it is more to any male who treats women with equality and respect. As in, he might hear me apologize to his mom for something I did wrong and say “stop being such a _ **simp** _ , dad!” The kid is never going to get a girlfriend with that attitude. Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever heard “simp” used in a context that wasn’t completely misogynistic. It pretty much says, “What kind of a **man** would actually care what _some woman_ thinks?!?” Historically, we’d have probably called the guy a “fag” in the same context, so maybe look at it in that light, and do what you can to get him to cut that shit out. ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/95 "2021-11-05T16:43:12Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > I recently learned the term, “ _slappin’_ ” Did we read the same crappy article about Gwyneth Paltrow just to find out what “slappin” meant? I’ll go along with **pulykamell** , and say I use “so” at the beginning of a sentence fairly often. Both written and spoken. I think we are similar ages and I also couldn’t say how long I’ve been doing it. It just seems like I always have. ---
**Author:** ![Yodalicious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yodalicious/32/8195_2.png) [@Yodalicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yodalicious)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2021, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/96 "2021-11-06T02:08:45Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Out of curiosity: Have you done it for decades, or mostly over the last 10-15 years? Did you use the “So …” lead in, say, as high-schoolers? > > EDIT: “So …” could also be a regionalism that spread out later. I’m 50, and have spent most of my life in metro Atlanta, but I can’t answer your question with accuracy. ---
**Author:** ![JJAURELIUS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@JJAURELIUS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JJAURELIUS)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2021, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/97 "2021-11-06T15:09:07Z")
So what? ---
**Author:** ![JJAURELIUS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@JJAURELIUS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JJAURELIUS)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2021, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/98 "2021-11-06T15:10:30Z")
I had problems spelling “Wednesday” until third-grade, 9-years old, until I started saying “Wed-nes-day” (silently) to myself when ever I spelled it. Still do that. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2021, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/99 "2021-11-06T15:18:07Z")
Me too. I do that will all sorts of troublesome words. ---
**Author:** ![Hatchie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hatchie/32/3983_2.png) [@Hatchie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hatchie)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2021, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621/100 "2021-11-16T02:12:59Z")
Like many here I got sick of hearing “like” and “you know” tossed into speech but couldn’t stop myself from doing it. I agree, placeholder words are useful and important, so I have been trying to train myself to say “ass” instead. Ass is a fun word, no longer banned in most media, handy for building constructions such as “hard-ass”, “crazy-ass”, “wise-ass” and many more to come. Really, ass, you can ass intensify any adjective by ass adding “ass” to it; it’s just ass so obvious as well as ass thoughtful-ass for all those who are ass tired of hearing “ass” and “ass” get abused. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-new-speak-that-you-ve-managed-to-adopt-into-your-vocabulary/953621.md?page=6)