If you agree, you say: 'innit, though'.
'Anyhoo.' Noticed it twice recently on the SE26 forum. Any special significance?
It sounds vaguely Canadian. Perhaps Canadians (or people who want to pass themselves off as Canadians) use it.
On a new subject, I'm feeling a bit sad about 'regularly' changing its meaning to 'frequently'. Eg, 'you have to change the filters more regularly as the appliance gets older'.
How would you indicate that you need to space the filter-changes more evenly?
I hadn't noticed this, but have found an interesting discussion by John Rentoul in The Independent (2011):
There are many pairs of words in English that have similar but distinct meanings.
In some cases a useful distinction is being lost because one of the words is increasingly taking the place of the other. Refute and rebut. Jealous and envious. And this week's example: regular and frequent. If something is regular that means it happens at predictable intervals. If it is frequent that means that it happens a lot. In our report on Wednesday of the trial of Silvio Berlusconi, we said that prosecutors alleged that "teen belly dancer Karima 'Ruby' el-Mahroug" and 30 other young women "regularly attended parties at Mr Berlusconi's mansion". That suggests that the parties were every Tuesday night at 7.30, which they might have been, I suppose, but I think "frequently" or "often" was what we meant.
Sometimes, though, occasional and unpredictable events are described as regular even when they were infrequent. In John Walsh's entertaining survey of snobbery on Tuesday, he quoted Nicholas Soames, the Conservative MP. "'Mine's a gin and tonic, Giovanni, and would you ask my friend what he's having?' he would regularly ask of John Prescott, a working-class former ship steward." That implies he did it every fortnight at Deputy Prime Minister's Questions. Actually he might have heckled something like it once or twice. On this occasion, the word should simply have been struck out.
Thanks Robin, nice article. Perhaps this is a change of usage in progress, and eventually the OED will define 'regularly' and 'frequently' as synonyms.
A particularly egregious (I've long wanted an excuse for using that word) example in this morning's 'Independent' . Dave Brown, the cartoonist, says he uses the image of the 'fat cat' 'relatively regularly'. The addition of 'regularly' seems to make matters worse - relatively to what?
And, while I've got everyone's attention, here's something else. I've noticed two examples this week of the misuse (sorry to be judgmental) of the Latin 'pace'. It doesn't mean 'with due acknowledgements to' the source of something, which is how George Galloway (no less) uses it in this morning's paper: he says that to wage aggressive war is 'pace Nuremberg, "the ultimate crime"'. It actually means 'with all due respect to', 'with due deference to', 'by leave of', or 'no offence to', and should be used to politely acknowledge someone with whom the speaker or writer disagrees.
Indeed. I know what he feels like.
I was one of the two "Anyhoo" users.
I probably picked it up of some American telly programme or film. I think the use for it is when you are aware you are rambling or going off subject and maybe a bit embarrassed, so use this slightly silly lighthearted way of saying "anyhow" to get back on track.
My bad.
(There's another one for you).
'My bad' has already been sighted on this thread - on p. 9
oops, sorry
Recently I have become very cross about the use of 'so' as thinking time during interviews on the wireless (sorry R4). Although in many ways better than 'well' or 'ahhh' or even 'hrmm' it does grate a little in the mornings. What is odd is that I can't actually remember when it started - I really became aware of it last year but I'm sure it started before then......
Yes isn't it interesting about 'so' suddenly appearing. It comes up in writing as well, at the beginning of the paragraph: 'So I was walking down the road...' Wonder where it came from.
'So' seems to be used a lot especially by younger people at the end of sentences now. It appears to me that they have often lost the thread of what they are saying, so...
My wife chides me for over-using 'so' as a conjunction in my written English. I shall be vigilant in future!
On another matter, a recent post on the SE26 forum has reminded me how the American 'peek', as in 'take a peek', seems to be driving out the British 'peep.' I know I shouldn't mind, but even so... I just don't understand why people do it. Is it to sound 'cool'?
Is it American to say 'peek'? I've always used 'peek' in the phrase 'take a peek'.
I should have checked. The OED does not in fact identify 'peek', either as a noun or a verb, as specifically American - in fact, the verb is found in Chaucer! However, all the early (19th century) examples of the noun which it gives are American. I certainly don't remember it being using when I was a child, and I suspect the first time I came across it must have been in some American film or book.
Regarding use of 'so', in a throwaway manner, surely this is just a matter of style, no more or less.
Am reminded of the Vonnegut usage: 'so it goes'. Very effective it is. Or, 'so it is' - a form of phrasing heard a lot in the Irish dialect and I find myself saying this - it sounds better somehow. Or I may just be mimicking the Irish OH, which is how it spreads, so it does.
