I loved this article in The Atlantic Wire about crutch words: those words we use that mean nothing but get us through a sentence: literally, actually, basically, essentially, like, seriously, honestly. They are words that you could simply leave off your sentence and the meaning would not be altered in the slightest. They punctuate our every thought with degrading hyperbole.
I use most of the crutch words mentioned in the article and also all manner of meaningless exclamatory statements like:
Awesome!
Wicked awesome!
Supercool!
Sweet!
Rad!
But my main crutch word is “Seriously.” I lean heavily on this word because it is so versatile and forgiving. For instance, you can use it for:
Candor
Someone: Did you have fun at that party?
Me: You seriously don’t understand me.
Agreement
Someone: Bruce Springsteen doesn’t get the credit he deserves from hipsters.
Me: Seriously.
Incredulity
John Friend: I’m gonna start teaching yoga again and pretend none of this ever happened.
Me: Seriously!?
In my more lucid moments I’ve been working on stripping the crutch words out of my vocab. I periodically rewatch this Taylor Mali video when I need a little reminder. I’ve posted this one before. But it’s so good. I can’t get enough. Seriously.
Totally awesome piece, seriously.
I would have recommended Taylor Mali if you hadn’t already found it. There’s an even better performance of it in “Slamnation”. Check it out if you can. Seriously.
Thank you, Joslyn [these 3 simple words seem safe enough after watching that video - but I'm not completely confident].
Definitely.
Seriously. My crutch words are from my kids. Besides is my favorite.
Besides, you don’t really understand me.
Besides, I just don’t want to do that.
“Really” is my most annoying crutch word
you should cross post this on A Band of Wives and it will go out in our newsletter to all 4700+ members. Great post!
Thanks Christine, I will definitely do that! And thanks for reading this!
I find myself using AND a lot, sotmeimes with THEN, sotmeimes alone, to string together two sentences that could perfectly well stand on their own (He sat down at the piano with a flourish, and then, after a momentary pause, he began to play a simple melody.) It’s not too bad once in a while but when every sentence in a paragraph is a compound sentence, this is not a good thing. Reading aloud is a good way to catch these problems.What irks me most in a published work is regional colloquialisms used inappropriately. I once read an science fiction novel where an enhanced human from another universe opened a pantry and ate a box cake. Since box cake is a Midwestern term for what I would call a box of cake mix, this dropped me right out of the story.
I am a big big fan of reading aloud. I spend most of my day doing so, in fact, as I write and edit! And yes, I agree with you wholeheartedly about regional colloquialisms when they are out of place.