Seriously? Seriously. Enough Already, Seriously!
Jun 13, 2006 Unordered Miscellany
It’s a word that I recently found myself using too often. I caught myself only after observing my wife was using the word a little too frequently. I hear friends and family use the word all the time. I hear it in public, I hear it on the radio, and I hear it in TV shows where I assumed writers were paid to avoid such vocabulary droughts.
The word: seriously.
Yes, seriously. Keep an open ear for this word and you’ll be surprised at how frequently it is commonly used. It is used in question form like a mild version of “You’re shittin’ me?” or “You’ve got to be kidding?” (“Seriously?”). It is used to stress a point as an exclamation (“Seriously!”). It is also used commonly at the end of a sentence in attempt to validate what one just said in place of “I kid you not” or “I swear on the bible” or “Scouts honor” (“seriously”). What is most ironic is that a word once used to stress seriousness of a situation (and generally in the middle of a sentence, i.e. “The following protocols should seriously be reconsidered”) is now such common place that it is used randomly and effortlessly in everyday language.
I am by no means grammar police (as you can tell by my constant typos, improper structure, and just general goofy errors through out my sites). But this is one thing that has become a nuisance to me. I think it all started when I was watching Gray’s Anatomy (a guilty pleasure of mine) and they used “seriously” as a whole dialog:
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Seriously!”
I used to think that show had some of the top paid writers in the industry too.
Time to drop this habit before it becomes the next valleygirl’s “like”.
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