Events | 2010.03.07
'Absolutely' isn't fabulous | Ian McMillan
Serial offenders who can\'t give a straight \'yes\' should have fines taken from their bank accounts
Language changes and evolves; we know that. The written sentence has shifted from, as it were, copperplate precision to txt spk – and I don\'t mind. I\'m not one of those people who get\'s annoyed when apostrophes end up in the wrong place: I celebrate the grocer and his tomato\'s and his e\'ggs. Let\'s face it: nobody dies. Nobody is even seriously injured.
Language isn\'t a precious vase that will shatter if we drop it: it\'s a robust jug that benefits from being kicked around by those of us who use it. I\'m happy with the old One Letter Alphabet, when someone says "A ... the hat was too big and also it was the wrong colour", and we never get to B, let alone C or Z, and my hackles stay resolutely unraised; I find that it\'s all part of language\'s steamy greenhouse. The one that makes you sweat with joy.
And yet, and yet: perhaps I\'m turning into one of those self-righteous grumps who get cross at the perceived slapping around of English, because there\'s one recent language development that, if I were a cartoon character, would make me shake my fist and go "Grrrrrrrrrr!". A few years ago, when people on radio or television were asked questions that required a yes, or an affirmative that was slightly less than yes (if that\'s possible), the interviewee would reply "... It is indeed", which is somehow weightier than yes, somehow more definite and more triumphant, even if you\'re only leaning your head out of the passenger window of a grammar grey Golf (that\'s not a real colour, but it should be) and asking if the post office is round the next corner.
These days "... It is indeed" (I\'m using the ellipsis to represent the breathy, almost theatrical flourish that always seemed to accompany the phrase; imagine invisible semi-verbal flowers pulled from a sleeve) has been replaced by "Absolutely!", with an exclamation mark.
In fact, I\'d go as far as to say that "Absolutely!", as well as being the new "... It is indeed!", is the new yes. Quite often the interviewee will elongate the first syllable into "Aaaarbsolutely", so that not only is it the new yes, it\'s the new er and the new um. "Absolutely!" has become a punctuation mark, a throat clearing before the real business of answering the question, as well as a partial answer to the question itself; and I have to admit I\'m becoming a little obsessed with this linguistic tic, this tricky trope, this warming-up-before-wordy-jogging.
I listen to the radio and tick off the absolutelys as they come flying in like pigeons. Three in one interview. Ten in another. A rash of double absolutelys, where the interviewee says "Absolutely!/Absolutely!" as though they\'re performing mouth music or Dada poetry. There can occasionally be a kind of almost sexual excitement in the middle of the double absolutely, when The Questioned One says "Absolutely! ... Oh, Absolutely!" I heard a triple "Absolutely!" the other day, each one building towards a climax as the word mounted an imaginary podium. I toy with the idea of forming a Facebook group called Absolutely Isn\'t Fabulous: Locate that Locution.
On my own radio show, I sometimes think about mentioning my absolute disdain for "Absolutely!" to my guests, but I figure that it might make them nervous, and I also realise that the expunging of the word is partly my responsibility. I realise that maybe it\'s the way the question is put that elicits the default ab, as we amateur wordsmiths describe it. If I say "I believe your new book is set in the Gobi desert", I\'m in danger of getting an "Absolutely!" lobbed back at me over the net. On the other hand, if I say "Which desert is your book set in?", I\'m on safe ground unless there\'s an Absolutely! desert somewhere that I haven\'t come across.
In the end, perhaps we should think of using these absolutelys for the common good. Let\'s propose an Absolutely! tax, a kind of iTunes-style micropayment – every time somebody on any radio or television programme uses "Absolutely!" in the way described above, they will have 50 pence taken from their bank accounts and the money can be put to the building of new schools. Serial Absolutely! offenders (politicians, nervous witnesses of historic events) can buy prepaid cards in denominations of five or 10 pounds. A perfect payback? Absolutely!
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]8/absolutely-language-word-use
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