Really?

I’ve discovered that I do “requests.”  I’m sitting at a keyboard, so a stretch could put me sitting at a keyboard in a piano bar, right?  So why not do requests?  Ideas given freely should be utilized, I think, so when a friend emailed me about how fired up she is getting over people overusing the word “really,” I figured what’s the harm in looking into it?  I hope she leaves me a tip.

There seems to be a lot of people who are incensed about the overuse of certain words.  A simple search of “Do People Overuse The Word Really” on Google turned up 20,400,000 hits.  I got to search page three.  By then it was clear that there are a number of overused words, some defined as words that should be cut from prose all together.  According to some, if really is in a sentence, it should be rewritten.  For example: “I’m really writing this.”  That sounds like I’m being totally defensive about who’s writing this piece.  By the way, “totally” is obviously another word that should be lined through.  “Really” adds nothing to this.

In Journalism 101 we would write a four or five paragraph article using some stated facts, and then edit what we had written down to one paragraph.  It was really difficult to do.  There I go again.  Was it “really” difficult, or just difficult?  Anyway, (there’s one I overuse a lot along with “so,” and “well.”) those of us who write kind of fall in love with the words we put on the page, as well as the order in which we put them, and we’re not really happy about seeing them go.  Oh my god, there I go again.

But I think what my friend is saying, is that, at least in her part of the world, what is commonly referred to as New England or the Northeast, the word “really” is now being used like “like” was used by the Valley Girls of the 80s.

“And he was like, you know, seriously, and like, I wanted to, totally, like, and he’s like, no way.”  And the other girl is..”like, I know.”  Know what?  It was worse than “um” and “uh” for krisakes.  I remember walking behind a group of young girls in a mall once, a place I frequent less than once a year, and they never formed a complete sentence during their entire conversation, yet they seemed to be communicating somehow.  Seriously?  Really?

So, (see?) without really asking my friend what she was all fired up about with the use of the word really, her statement, “You get to the point where you would like to say to people really do you have to use the word really so much???” kind of sums it up.

What I noticed in my unofficial research is that people say “seriously” more than “really,” but sometimes together as in “You still like Madonna?  Really?  Seriously?”  My research was done in my part of the world which is commonly referred to as the Southwest or the Land of Enchantment.  Here it is often said as “realmente” or “en serio.”  Bilingual with the help of a English/Spanish dictionary, you see.

How about “literally?”  As in, “I mean that, literally.”  Here’s some thesaurus entries for that word:  actually, completely, correctly, direct, directly, faithfully, indisputably, letter by letter, literatim, not figuratively, plainly, precisely, really…what?  Seriously?  Really?  Really is a synonym for literally?  I use literally a lot.  I use really a lot, but I’m not sure I use it when I’m talking.

I guess it’s now an epidemic in the east according to my friend, at least in the northeast, like around Boston.  No really, I think people are really, using the word, really too much from what I’m told, really.  So you should stop.  That’s what I think.  You’ll start to sound like Canadians that use “aye” at the end of every sentence.  I found a poll online with 27 responses that shows Americans think Canadians say “aye” 9,000 times a day, but actually say it less than ten.  I’m going with 9,000.  They are ending every sentence with, basically, the word “right,” or the phrase “isn’t it.”  “Cold up here today, aye.”

Well, (there I go again.) I hope I’ve done my part in pointing out something that is really bothering some of us, and warn you that this could really spread if we’re not careful.  Wait, did you just say, “Really? Did you just say that, Seriously?”

Football Withdrawal

Yes, I watched the Super Bowl yesterday.  Not only did I watch the Super Bowl, but I watched all five hours of the pre-game show too.  You might find it amazing that I have watched all 46 Super Bowls except one.  Then again, maybe not.  When the Giants beat the Buffalo Bills 20-19 in 1991, when  Scott Norwood missed a winning field goal in the last two minutes of the game, I was driving a UHaul truck to Tucson, Arizona, so I had to listen to the game on the radio.  But I did.  I listened to the entire game.

I was ecstatic when Norwood missed the field goal.  Not because the Giants won as a result, but because the Bills lost and became a four-time loser of the Super Bowl in four consecutive years.  And it was mainly because they tied the Denver Broncos at that point with the most Super Bowl losses.  I’m a Denver Broncos’ fan.  I have been a Broncos fan since the franchise began in 1960 and I have never jumped off the band wagon.  As evidenced by my obsession with the big game, you can tell I’m a football fan.  In fact, I don’t watch any other sport on television, although I have been known to go to a college basketball game from time to time, and a baseball game once in a while.  I’ve been to a couple of soccer games recently because my granddaughter and grandson play, but I just can’t get into it.

Because I hate the Patriots (It appears to be the most reviled team in the country outside of Boston, so it’s no surprise.) I found myself rooting for the Giants again.  It was billed as the rematch of 2007, although it’s truly impossible for it to be a rematch since the players and schemes are totally different from the teams of 2007.  I also did not think the two best teams in the NFL made it to the big game.  The NFC Championship game ended in overtime with a fumble by the 49ers and the AFC Championship game ended when the Ravens missed a game-winning field goal in the final seconds of the game.  Super Bowl XLVI should have been between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens.  I would have been more interested in that game.  But that is how football games go.  Any professional football team can beat any other team on any given Sunday.  Commissioner, Bert Bell, coined that phrase back in the 1940s.

So I was stuck watching a game I didn’t care about except that I didn’t want the Patriots to win.  A team heavily favored to win, both times they played the Giants in Super Bowls.  And it turned out that the most exciting part of the game for me was Madonna’s halftime show.  And not so much Madonna, but the stage.  It was incredible.  But most of you saw it, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Commercials during the Super Bowl have become one of the most important parts of the event as well.  There is even a $100,000 prize for the best commercial, a bit short of the $117,000 per second cost of this year’s Super Bowl commercial, and it’s probably the only place you will see a naked M&M.  There was a lot of “sex-sells” advertising on this year’s Super Bowl, and I’m always amazed by the “Go Daddy” ads which probably started it all.  Because they go “naked woman” to a point and tell you “to see more” go to godaddy.com.  It drives an incredible amount of traffic to their site, and, no, they don’t show any “more.”  My favorite ad was the overweight dog that wanted to chase a Volkswagen and couldn’t get through the doggy door.

I used to have a Super Bowl Party, like millions of others do as an excuse to eat snack foods that are bad for you and drink yourself into oblivion when you have to get up for work the next day, but I stopped.  Not because of the eating and drinking, but because I wasn’t getting to see the game.  Now that I have DVR, of course, I can rewind and watch something I missed, but the party atmosphere wasn’t working for this football fan.  I should also mention that the cost to throw one of these parties was getting a little over the top.  Super Bowl Sunday is number two behind Thanksgiving for the day when the most food is consumed, but number one in snack food consumed.

How about an estimated 1.25 million chicken wings were consumed during the game, enough to circle the earth twice.  West Coaster’s have less time to binge because of the earlier start of the game there, I guess.  A good majority of the food consumed at Super Bowl parties will come from Texas, specifically the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.  Yeah, Salsa and chips.  There were two of us at our house for the game, and we had con-queso and corn chips, potato chips and dip, cheese, cream cheese and Ritz, and Buffalo Wings.  We ate all of it.

So another football season is over, and now I’ll go into football withdrawals, sneaking a peek at the NFL Network to re-live some of the past games, keep up on all the trades and drafts in the coming months, and waiting for the opening day kick-off, September 6, 2012, the 93rd regular season of the NFL.  From now on, today is just one day closer to football season.  I’ll get things done around the house on Sundays now.  That Denver loss to the Patriots in this year’s playoffs will become a thing of the past.  All will be right with the world.