943. Join us for a fascinating romp through the evolution of phrases like "you know," "right?" and "I mean" from Beowulf's time to today. Plus, we look at how people's feelings about using "anxious" to mean "eager" are changing, and how that can affect your writing.
943. Join us for a fascinating romp through the evolution of phrases like "you know," "right?" and "I mean" from Beowulf's time to today. Plus, we look at how people's feelings about using "anxious" to mean "eager" are changing, and how that can affect your writing.
The discourse marker segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." You can find her at valeriefridland.com
| Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/anxious-eager
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by Valerie Fridland
We often pepper our sentences with extra little words called discourse markers — “I mean,” “you know,” “well,” “like,” and “so” — and they tend to irk native and non-native speakers alike. People learning English aren't sure how to use them, and some native English speakers feel like we shouldn’t use them at all. But did you know that discourse markers have actually been around since the days of Old English, and that the heroic epic poem Beowulf even started off with one? Say hwat??
Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. Stick around because after we talk about Beowulf's Valley Girl habits, we're going to talk about a big change in the way people view the words "anxious" and "eager."
"Say hwat" is right, but by “hwat,” (H-W-A-T) I don’t actually mean “what” in the modern English question sense, but instead, I mean it in the Old English discourse marker sense which, according to linguist Laurel Brinton who literally wrote the book on discourse markers, “expresses speaker surprise and focuses attention.” In other words, it essentially signals “Listen up! I’m going to tell you something cool.” This is why some hip modern interpretations of Beowulf translate the first word in the poem, “hwat,” as simply as “Bro!”
Both back in Beowulf's time and today, discourse markers like "to begin with" and "now" help sentences flow together. Words like "well" and "anyway" give people subtle clues about your intentions. And discourse markers like "you know" and "right" help check in with and keep listeners engaged. These little additions might not seem absolutely necessary because, at first glance, they don't seem to convey much concrete information, but for something we often dismiss, they sure have a surprisingly long history of people using them to get their points across.
Even more common in Old English than “hwat,” was the discourse marker “tha,” (T-H-A) a precursor to our modern word "then." It appears all the time in Old English texts (from the 8th and 11th centuries) where it gave readers a heads-up that something is changing — an uptick in action, a new topic, or a switch to informal speech. In fact, it occurred so often in these old texts that some scholars say it couldn’t possibly have carried much meaning beyond helping link sentences, the same way people now use the word "so" at the beginning of sentences to keep things moving along and connect one sentence to another. Other discourse markers you can find in this early period are “witodlice” (meaning “certainly”) and “sothlice” meaning “truly.”
Later, in the Middle English period (around 1100-1500), you start seeing discourse markers we still recognize today, such as “ah,” “alas,” and “now.” A popular Middle English word, “anon,” which originally carried the meaning of “immediately” (as in “I’ll do it anon”), also began to be used as a discourse marker to help sequence action or events in stories (i.e., noting “here’s what happens next,” as in "And anone he harde much noyse in that chambir"). By Shakespeare’s time (known as the Early Modern Period, around 1500-1700), people were using “anon” as a marker of attentiveness. Typically, someone with lower status used it when speaking to someone with higher status as in “Anon, what is your will, mistresse?” which is a citation from the Elizabethan play “Ralph Roister Doister” from 1556.
Going back to Middle English for a second, the biggest discourse marker gift we get from this period is “ye knowen,” which people used to call up common or shared knowledge and was the precursor of our ever so popular modern day discourse marker “y’know.” Middle English also gave us the modern discourse marker “I mean” to show you want to clarify something — though it wasn't until the 17th century that people started using it to fix a misspeak (as in “he wo… I mean… he walked”).
But moving on to Early Modern English again, some discourse markers you might have seen in Shakespeare’s works include “prithee” (short for “I pray thee”) and “marry” (M-A-R-R-Y)(shortened from “by Mary,” as in Jesus’s mother). These had both become popular ways to claim the speaking floor and communicate some emotional intensity. We also find “Oh!” (just O-H) appearing frequently during this period, though it mainly functioned as an exclamation and not yet as a discourse marker indicating some sort of shift in state, the way we sometimes use it today. For example, when I say “Oh! I got a job,” it suggests this is a change in state from being jobless when we talked before. That's different from the way I say “Oh!” when you startle me—that's just an exclamation of surprise caused by your stealthiness.
A few other discourse markers we think of as very new and modern today also got their start in the Early Modern era – for example, if you think Mark Zuckerberg was the one who introduced using “right” in the middle of sentences to check if people are keeping up, think again. This discourse marker showed up at the very end of Shakespeare’s era.
Likewise, “actually” and “anyway” start to appear as discourse markers in this era, but through a gradual process. First, they appeared in the middle of sentences modifying verbs, as in “whomsoever a man shall any way declare,” a phrase from 1651. Then they begin to appear at the beginning of sentences as sentence adverbs or discourse markers that suggest you want to get back to the original topic, as in this sentence from "Moby Dick," which was written in 1851: “Anyway, there’s something on his mind, as sure as there can be something on a deck when it cracks.”
The difference being that in the example from "Moby Dick," "anyway" simply implies something and could be deleted without changing much of the meaning because it is more of a subtle indicator that you are getting back to a point. In the example from 1651, however, (“whomsoever a man shall any way declare”), you can't delete "anyway" because it is part of the main meaning of the sentence. And that's what separates a discourse marker from a regular adverb, conjunction, or preposition.
Finally, everyone’s favorite modern discourse marker, “like,” was not entirely absent in English’s early history. Although a form of “like” appears as the verb “lician” very early on (around 1200), its prepositional use (in other words, "Life is like a box of chocolates") — that use comes a bit later, toward the end of the Middle English period. For example, we find lots to like in this line from a text written around 1530: “Her body is lyke a swan.”
From there — using "like" for comparisons — people started also using "like" for approximations (as in "He is like a brother to me,") and after that, it developed into a discourse marker showing a looseness of meaning, as in "Like, he's a brother to me."
And despite our strong devotion to the idea that “like” is a valley girl innovation, the word has actually been used as this kind of discourse marker in both literary and casual documents going all the way back to the 1700s.
So, love them or hate them, discourse markers have been around a really, really long time in the history of English. What that tells us is that they must be doing something important for us as speakers, or we wouldn’t keep creating new ones to make sure our listeners are clued in to how to take what we tell them. Kind of just makes you want to say, “like, wow,” you know?
That segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." You can find her at valeriefridland.com.
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By Mignon Fogarty
"Anxious" means “worried or uneasy,” but it has often been used somewhat interchangeably with the word "eager," to mean “full of keen desire” — but that flexibility seems to be changing.
We got the word "anxious" directly from Latin where it meant essentially the same thing: worried, disturbed, uneasy, and so on.
"Eager," on the other hand, comes directly from French, and an interesting usage quirk is that although French did have the "full of keen desire" meaning, it had many more negative meanings for the word. The Oxford English Dictionary mentions "severe," "fierce," "savage," "pungent," "strenuous," and more. Another meaning was "sour," and that's one of the roots of the Latin word for "vinegar," which was essentially "wine eager" or "wine sour."
English also had many negative meanings for "eager" in the beginning, but they've mostly become obsolete, rare, or regional. Today in English, when you hear the word "eager," you think of positive emotions.
In the recent past, let's say the early 1900s, usage writers started making a big deal about not using "anxious" to mean "eager." You were eager to take your apples to the market to sell if it was just for some extra money, but you would have been anxious about taking your apples to market if you absolutely had to get a certain amount of money for them to be able to survive the winter. You're eager for good things, but you're anxious for bad things or things that make you worried.
"Anxious" had been evolving, though. By 10 or 15 years ago, many people were using the words interchangeably. Three major dictionaries imply that it’s OK to use "anxious" to mean “eager,” from dictionary.com saying it's fully standard to the American Heritage Dictionary saying in 2014 that resistance was waning. Fifty-seven percent of their usage panel said it was fine to use "anxious" to mean "eager," and the most recent edition of Garner’s Modern English Usage says using "anxious" to mean “eager” is ubiquitous.
However, I have seen indications that resistance to using "anxious" to mean "eager" is actually growing again, which is very uncommon! When a word starts becoming accepted, it usually continues to become more accepted. But in this case, cultural factors are becoming stronger than linguistic factors. I recently did a poll on Facebook, and only 43% of the people who responded said it was OK to use "anxious" to describe an event someone was looking forward to — 14% fewer than the American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel in 2014. That was surprising to me.
But after reading the comments — sometimes yes, it does pay to read the comments! — it became more clear: We've become much more open about mental illness in the last 10 or so years, and the word “anxious” is used more frequently in a medical context. Which means that although anxiety isn't stigmatized like it used to be, people do view it as something they'd rather not have. If you're going to the doctor and getting a prescription for being anxious, you're not going to associate that word with happy feelings or being full of keen desire.
So although usage guides no longer say it's wrong to use "anxious" to mean "eager," it's probably still a good idea to keep the words separate. You're eager to see the dessert tray at a fancy restaurant, but anxious about seeing the final bill. You're eager to get your new puppy, but anxious about how it might get along with your cat.
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Finally, I have a familect story.
"Hi, Grammar Girl. This is Connie with a familect. My daughter, when she was a toddler, would often overhear me calling the house a pig sty when it was a big mess, and we were very surprised one day when she opened the door to her own room strewn with toys and declared it was a pink stein. We thought this was really funny and kept it in our family lexicon, and the house is often declared a pink stein, which makes it much more fun to clean up together. We also realized that 'pig' and 'pink' could be interchanged in a lot of situations to make them more fun. My daughter would request pink tails to go to school and of course, we could all be a little pink headed sometimes. Thank you for your podcast, and I look forward to hearing you every week. Take care. Bye bye."
Thanks, Connie! With all the Barbie pink I've been seeing on social media, I'm sure a lot of people would love to adopt your family's word.
If you want to share the story of your familect, a word your family and only your family uses, call the voicemail line at 83-321-4-GIRL. It’s in the show notes, and be sure to tell me the story behind your familect because that’s always the best part.
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to our audio engineer, Nathan Semes, and our director of podcasts, Adam Cecil. Thanks also to our ad operations specialist, Morgan Christianson; our digital operations specialist, Holly Hutchings; and our marketing associate, Davina Tomlin, who recently completed their first aerial sling class.
And I’m Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. That's all. Thanks for listening.
Citations for the "discord marker" segment:
The following were not in the audio version of the podcast, but are included here for completeness:
"like, adj., adv., conj., and prep.". OED Online. March 2023. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.unr.idm.oclc.org/view/Entry/108302?rskey=OM5iaY&result=3&isAdvanced=false (accessed July 15, 2023).
Brinton. Laurel. 2010. Discourse Markers. In Historical Pragmatics, edited by Andreas H. Jucker, and Irma Taavitsainen. Berlin: New York. De Gruyter. 285-314.
Brinton. Laurel. 1996. Pragmatic Markers in English: Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions. Berlin: New York. De Gruyter.
Headley, Maria. 2020. Beowulf: A New Translation. New York. Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Tabor, Whitney and Elizabeth Traugott. 1998. Structural scope expansion and grammaticalization. In Limits of Grammaticalization, edited by Ramat, Anna Giacalone, and Paul J. Hopper, John Benjamins Publishing Company. 229-272.