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Journal Assignment #8: Regional Marijuana Slang

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Journal Assignment #8: Regional Marijuana Slang

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"You guys wanna play baseball?"

This question was recently posed among a few friends of mine while sharing a joint. It left me scratching my head.

"What's that?" I asked.
"You've never heard of baseball? It's when everyone takes their hit and holds it in until the joint comes back around to you."
"Oh, you mean Chicago," I responded.

From here, the conversation devolved into an argument as to whether this game - which is either conservational or just masochistic in nature - is called "baseball" or "Chicago." Everyone else had only heard it referred to as "baseball," which absolutely baffled me, who had only ever heard it called "Chicago." I began surveying other friends, and I quickly came to a realization. All my friends from the East Coast -- friends from back home in Upstate NY, friends from NYC, New England, Virginia, and elsewhere -- all used the term "Chicago." Friends from out west -- primarily California, but also Washington and Oregon -- knew the game as "baseball." Since attending college, where I have met marijuana enthusiasts of various origins, regional disparities in weed slang have become more apparent to me. Here's a similar example:

"Yo bro, superman that roach. You'll get sooooo high."

I made this joke with a different group of friends once the joint was on its last legs. Although some of the guys chuckled, there were definitely also some confused looks. I decided to pose a question to the group.

"What do you guys call it when you swallow the roach?"

"Wu-Tang!"

Strangely enough, I had never heard the term Wu-Tang to describe the phenomena of eating the butt of a joint or blunt, only the term "to Superman," although the Wu-Tang Clan is, of course, a New York Hip-Hop group. And, indeed, the guys in question hail from New Jersey! I'm not sure what accounts for the lexical difference here, but I wonder if it may pertain to a divide between a "Northern" dialect (Upstate NY) and a metropolitan one, from NYC-adjacent New Jersey kids.

Marijuana slang from the United Kingdom is extremely idiosyncratic, and mostly foreign to American English weed enthusiasts. Many of the terms used by English smokers are borrowed from Jamaican dialects, according to a friend of mine who's something of an authority on the subject. Terms like "zoot," for joint, or "skin," for a rolling paper aren't so outlandish. However, words like "bunning," equivalent of "blazing," "draw" for "weed," or "bifta" for joint are a bit more uncommon. "Ammo" is sort of equivalent to the American "mids," referring to weed of common, unspectacular quality. Whereas Americans may call particularly potent weed "gas," or "loud," (or, if you're from Upstate New York, "pressure" or "pain"), UK smokers might call it "peng draw."

One interesting difference I've observed pertains to the word "spliff." The word has a strong connotation with New York City and with Hip-Hop; in my personal lexicon, "spliff" refers exclusively to a joint in which tobacco and marijuana have been mixed, or less commonly, to when the weed has been rolled in a tobacco leaf of some kind (though this practice is more commonly referred to as a "blunt," a "leaf," a "wood" shortened from Backwood). However, I have encountered other smokers outside of NYC and surrounding areas -- the United Kingdom, the American South, and even the West Coast -- who use "spliff" to refer generally to weed rolled in a paper, regardless of the presence of tobacco. This lack of distinction between "spliffing" a joint, or adding loose tobacco, and simply rolling up some marijuana is quite confusing to me.

Thankfully, some terms are essentially universal. "Weed," "bud," "joint," "blunt," and other nonspecific slang create a sort of stoner lingua franca. However, divulging the most idiosyncratic elements of our weed-related language is one of the most entertaining elements of sharing a joint with friends.

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Journal Assignment #7: My Multilingual Dorm

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Journal Assignment #7: My Multilingual Dorm

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Like many students at NYU, my speech networks, especially among my peers, feature great linguistic diversity. For this assignment, I am going to focus on how multilingualism functions in my dorm, between me and my roommates.

I live in a suite with five total students, all men aged 19-21. Four of us are close friends who opted to live together, with one random roommate (I will call him "the rando") who we are less familiar with. I share a room with my friends Javi and Eric; our other friend Jesse shares the adjacent room with the rando. Although Javi originally hails from South Korea, he spent a substantial portion of his childhood living in Valencia, Spain. His mother was an English teacher, and Javi spent time speaking English on a U.S. Military base in his youth as well. He is a native speaker of Korean, Spanish, and English, in order of proficiency according to his own evaluation. Eric was raised by Korean immigrants in California, and speaks English and Korean natively. Jesse attended a bilingual school in his youth and learned Spanish and English, though his proficiency in the former has declined to sub-fluent conversational proficiency. I, likewise, am a strong conversational speaker of Spanish, though I don't have a native grasp of the language.

Spanish is used around our house frequently, and often in recurring contexts. Javi and I tend to greet each other in Spanish when one of us arrives home. A lot of our Spanish discourse tends to be polite small talk. We use Spanish mostly to discuss events in the "real world" -- what we did that day, what our plans are, how we are feeling, who we saw, comments on the weather or other qualities of our environment, and so on. Between Javi and I, Spanish is the language of unimportant chit-chat; however, there is an sort of basic, mutual pleasure in our Spanish conversations. Because Spanish is not the de facto language of our daily lives, using it adds an element of novelty and presence to our mundane conversation. English, then, is reserved for more substantive conversations. When discussing politics or philosophy, conveying more complicated events or stories, or making attempts at more subtle humor, we revert to English.

It is also interesting to note how the presence of non-Spanish speakers influences how and when we use the language. When we have company over, Spanish is reserved for more personal interjections; for example, in the presence of a few friends, Javi may ask me, "Podría robarte unos huevos?" or "Encontró el cargador?" using Spanish because the content of the question pertains to only he and I, or to our mutual knowledge. Occasionally, Spanish is the language used to discuss something sensitive, private, or secret in the presence of others. Jesse may engage with us in Spanish conversation occasionally, too, although this is less common, and he seldom initiates use.

In the event that our guests are Spanish speakers, the language is used, similarly, for polite greetings and small talk. For example, almost every time our friend Ivan, who is a native Spanish speaker, comes over, greetings and a bit of "catching up" are carried out in Spanish. As Ivan becomes integrated into the social environment of the dorm, especially with the non-Spanish speakers, such as Eric or other guests, we all revert to English, the lingua franca.

Although I am not a Korean speaker, I am very intrigued by the way Javi and Eric use the language around the house. From scribblings on post-it notes to posters and stickers, Korean characters can be found all over our dorm's linguistic landscape. The contexts in which the language is spoken are quite interesting, I think; one notable quality is the association of the Korean language with Korean culture. For example, Javi often prepares traditional Korean food in the house. When he does, he often puts on his "Korean Dad" persona, adopting a gruff voice and asking Eric, formally, if he would like some food. Eric, playing along, uses the corresponding standards of politeness one would afford an elder to politely accept or decline. Javi, who likes to say he's the "Asian Dad I Never Had," will often adopt this same persona towards me, though communicating in English with a faux-Korean accent, a gruff voice,  often asking me if I'd like some food, if I have been studying, and so on. Although their intent is certainly not  exclusionary, Eric and Javi's use of Korean represent social situations distant to me. Phone calls with family members, for example, are generally carried out in Korean. I often hear the language spoken in the living room after I've gone to bed, or in other, more secluded contexts where Javi and Eric are the sole participants.

I suspect that, for Eric and even Jesse to a milder extent, mine and Javi's use of Spanish creates a certain distance or exclusivity as well, which I plan to be more conscious of from now on. Becoming more conscious of precisely how multilingualism functions in day-to-day social engagements around my own home reveals the ways in which we draw ourselves closer to others; however, it may also demonstrate the ways we create social distance.

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The video I attached below is a recording of Sweet Emma Barrett, a New Orleans jazz pianist and singer, performing "I Ain't Gonna Give Nobody None of My Jelly Roll" at Preservation Hall in 1963.

"I know you want it
I've got to turn you down
My jelly roll is sweet
And it can't be beat
I know you want it
You can't have it
I ain't gonna give you none!"

In this song and in many blues songs, "jelly roll" is used as a euphemism for female genitalia. I've included a link to an article from the American Blues Scene about the origins and usage of "jelly roll" in blues music. Culinary euphemisms for sex seem to appear somewhat frequently in jazz from the twentieth century; "cake" is also used in this recording. In general, jazz has a whole lot of slang terms- they might function as a form of covert prestige among musicians and listeners, or be used as euphemisms to address topics in music that would otherwise be considered inappropriate in public performance.

https://www.americanbluesscene.com/language-blues-jelly-roll/

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For this entry, I asked my grandmother and my father if I could record them speaking in the car driving through the city, from which I attached a short audio clip below. I want to look at the way New York City English has changed over two generations in my family. My father and grandmother both grew up in Brooklyn, and where my grandmother lived and worked until moving to Manhattan in her 50's. My father lived in New York City until he moved to Princeton, New Jersey, for college, and later to Pittsburgh, then back to New Jersey. In the audio, you can clearly hear my grandmother's "Brooklyn Jew" accent, including  the use of non-rhotic vowels, the tense /æ/ in "bad", and the emphasized pronunciation of "t" at the end of "not" (in the recording) and other words ending in the consonant. On the other hand, my father displays very few of these features besides the raised "ah" vowel in words like "sorry". My father pronounces his "r's" whereas his mother is "r"-less. This is reflective of Labov's studies showing a decline in "r"-lessness over time in NYCE.

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This journal examines the usage of the term "literally" in youth vernacular. It is most commonly used as an intensifier for the statement or question. The simple question "what?" transforms into a more demanding and colder version: "literally what?". As I've noticed in its usage, the term tends to solidify the seriousness of the statement. This being said, it can also be used as a tonal indicator for sarcasm. "I hate you" turns into "I literally hate you", which can be read literally or ironically depending on the context. It's interesting to see a word be used for both its intended meaning and to imply its opposing meaning. The term literally can literally be literally used or it can literally be figurative. It depends entirely on the tone of the sentence and the tone of the interaction. Though, the meaning is always intelligible regardless of the situation. This usage of the word can be compared to that of a filler word as well.

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Journal Assignment #10: Linguistic Relativity

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Journal Assignment #10: Linguistic Relativity

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The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (or linguistic relativity) claims that language influences a speakers perception of the world. The "strong hypothesis"  of linguistic relativity, which was more popular before World War II, posits that language limits linguistic and cognitive categories. The more popular "weak hypothesis" only suggests that language influences these items. The theory of linguistic relativity has been abandoned by modern linguists but I'd argue that it has some credibility. My friend, who is fluent in English, Hungarian, Mandarin Chinese, and German, has slightly different personalities that coincide with each language. This was first brought to my attention when we were discussing an upcoming presentation that she had for class. She claimed that it would be fine because it would be in English, her best public speaking language. English is not her best language, but the one where she feels the most outgoing and ready to take on crowds. Her first language as taught by her parents is Mandarin Chinese, and she grew up speaking Hungarian at school and with friends. English is a language that came only from a formal education as a young adult. This however, was the language that she used at Model United Nations conferences and so she associates the language with acting like a diplomat, and is thus more comfortable speaking in public in English, dispute it not being her best language. Another example of her language use supporting the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis is her lack of ability to express herself in English. Her frustrations aren't with not knowing the vocabulary to express her emotions, but with English lacking the vocabulary at all. She is not feeling happy or sad or something of the sort, she is feeling something that she could not explain to me, but was a usual feeling for those who spoke the language to feel. She seems to have the ability to express how she feels in Hungarian to a much higher degree, and claims that she is able to do this because it is a much more subtle and descriptive language. So her English personality, born in mock debates, is loud and confident. Hungarian is more tender and emotional. Mandarin Chinese is more childish, reserved for family of whom she is the youngest by eight years. German is measured and mechanical, as a result of her time spent in Germany being an awkward period of her life completely enveloped in education and living with a strange host family. Although I disagree with the strong hypothesis. I definitely think that there is merit to the weak hypothesis and my observations of my friend's behavior is proof.

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Journal Assignment #9: Localized Slang, "Bootyass"

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Journal Assignment #9: Localized Slang, "Bootyass"

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When I first described this phenomena in class, it was met with great confusion. Not only from those who have never heard the term before, but also from myself who assumed it was a regular commonplace slang term. For the sake of this journal entry, I decided to do some research, and what better place to get information on slang than Urban Dictionary. I am pleased to see that I did not misspeak, and that at least one place on the internet, it exists. Although, the definition (written in 2012) does claim that the term originates in my home town of Morristown, New Jersey. Seven years is a long time for a term to be in the vernacular of one community, yet remain on the fringes of their culture. How did the word survive such a long time when other more popular slang came and left in the matter of months? I think it has something to do with local identity. There is almost never a situation where the term "bootyass" is appropriate to use, or would be socially evaluated as funny or clever. There is almost no reason to use it. However, given that the Urban Dictionary entry's example sentence is, "Wow, you'd only hear someone say that in Morristown, New Jersey." there must be a sense of locality that comes from using the term. In Pittsburgh, PA, rather than "y'all" they replace the contraction with "yinz". I spoke to a friend who lives there, and he confirmed that it is not a word for every day use. It is a specific piece of vocabulary that gives locals a feeling of solidarity. Perhaps "bootyass" is relevant for the same reason. It is a word that should have succumb to the linguistic marketplace, but has managed to persist through its importance as something that distinguishes locality.

The second entry refers to Morristown.

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Entry 7

I saw this series of images floating around on social media the other day and wanted to comment on it. I recognize that although we never talked about it in class, xenophobia can play a critical role in whether a language or non-standard variants are considered “acceptable” and that the history of a country, especially one that was colonized, also plays a role. This reminded me of the Official English movement that occurred here in the United States that we talked about in class. It’s astonishing that so many people could think that English is the official language of a country just because it’s dominant even though no one has ever told them that, and then personally take it upon themselves to police that. Additionally, even if English was the official language of Australia, that would stop governments from distributing materials in other languages, but would it prohibit businesses from doing so? At what point do such policies cross the line to violent racism?
https://www.popsugar.com.au/tech/photo-gallery/39705664/image/39705665/We-believe-Australia-welcoming-inclusive-society/amp

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Today during my freshman seminar, some students were giving presentations and I noticed that there were more rising intonations than I've noticed in normal speech when talking to those people. After taking note of it, I realized that the rising intonation was when they were feeling less confident in what they were saying and not entirely sure where to go next. I could tell they weren't very confident based on their body language and especially their lack of eye contact with the audience. The rising intonation, even though they may not have noticed it, definitely made the presentation feel less strong and secure. Rather, it felt as if they themselves weren't sure of the point they were making. This was particularly prevalent in one presenter who read notes directly from his phone and never looked up, even at their own slides. They frequently had rising intonation.
I can't say I've noticed rising intonation much elsewhere except when I was watching videos from the Australian Zoo, in which I noticed a significant increase in rising intonation. The woman, Bindi Irwin, was the most frequent user of it, while everyone else used it, but to a lesser extent. She didn't do it every time, but frequently enough that I noticed it. This supports the idea that women do generally lead linguistic changes and that the rising intonation really started in Australia.
Attached is a video with Bindi in it and a couple examples of rising intonation.

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Two "Otterly Adorable" Asian Otters Put On A Show At Australia Zoo | Crikey! It's the Irwins

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The second article covered advice given by former employee of Apple and Google, Ellen Leanse, who told women to stop saying ‘just’ because it “hurts their credibility in the workplace.” The article’s author, Shane Ferro, however, completely disagrees with this and calls out Leanse for not using real research to back up her claims (she did one experiment herself and found simply that women say ‘just’ more often than men, but did not collect data on value judgements). He accuses Leanse of advising women to be more like men at the core of her argument, which is not helpful. Ferro cites linguist, Debbie Cameron, who argues that using ‘just’ as a softener is simply more polite, and a way of asking for favors. Ferro concludes by noting that policing the use of ‘just’ is more successful at putting women down than getting them ahead in professional settings.

My personal stance on this argument leans more towards Ferro’s stance. However, I think that using an app like Just Not Sorry might be helpful in showing women how often they use softening terms because I personally do it subconsciously. While I do not think that we should police women’s speech whatsoever, I do think we as a society should get to the root issue of why women feel that they must soften their statements and requests. I think that this is less of an issue about changing the way women speak, and more about creating a workplace environment where women do not always feel like they are imposing on others.

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thecrazyfilmgirl/flickr
I just cannot.

A couple of weeks ago, Business Insider published a post by Ellen Petry Leanse, a former Apple and Google employee. The gist of it was that people (read: women) should stop saying the word "just" so often because it hurts their credibility in the workplace.

So far, the post has more than 3 million views.

Unfortunately, research doesn't bear out her conclusion, and the advice might hurt women more than it helps them.

The problem here isn't the women who hedge their words; it's the people who believe policing them is somehow a service.

As a professional woman, I can't think of a worse use of my workday than having to check myself every time I said something out loud (really, think about it!). It would also be, ironically, a blow to my confidence to second-guess myself after every thought I brought up to other people.

In her post Leanse writes:

In a room full of young entrepreneurs, a nice even mix of men and women, I asked two people - a guy and a girl - to each spend three minutes speaking about their startups. I asked them to leave the room to prepare, and while they were gone I asked the audience to secretly tally the number of times they each said the word "just."

Unsurprisingly in this context, the female speaker ends up saying "just" far more often than the male one.

Other than this single anecdote, the post cites no real research. Instead, it leans on the myth that if only women could act just a little bit more like men, they would finally be able to succeed in the workplace.

This is not good advice. Actual studies show that when women act like men in the workplace, they are often told to stop being so abrasive.

Kieran Snyder writes in Fortune that after looking over 248 performance reviews, "negative personality criticism- watch your tone! step back! stop being so judgmental! -shows up twice in the 83 critical reviews received by men. It shows up in 71 of the 94 critical reviews received by women."

Further, linguist Debbie Cameron writes that this idea that women need to use more forceful language, or at least that they need to cut down on their "weak" language, has mostly been debunked by linguists.

Cameron writes that when "researchers looked in detail at the way words like 'just' were actually used, it became apparent that they don't only have one function. In some contexts 'just' does do the job of a hedge, but in others it acts as a booster, the opposite of a hedge. Think of Nike's slogan, 'Just do it'."

Further, Cameron says, "just" is often used to soften a request; it's a polite gesture that says you know that you are asking someone to do something they don't have to.

This happens every day in the working world. The business world runs on favors. Cameron gives the example of a journalist asking for comment from an expert: "Is it OK if I just ask you a couple of questions?" (I can confirm I use hedging in this context on cold calls all the time.)

In my favorite part of Cameron's argument, she compares policing the language of women to policing their bodies:

Instead of focusing on what we're saying, we're distracted by anxieties about the way we sound to others. 'Am I being too apologetic?' and 'Is my voice too high?' are linguistic analogues of 'is my nail polish chipped?' and 'do I look fat in this?'

Urging women not to use specific words is not about empowerment. It's about selling women something by putting them down. And that's ultimately destructive to the mission of getting women ahead in the workplace.

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This one piece of viral workplace advice for women is actually a terrible idea

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I just cannot. A couple of weeks ago, Business Insider published a post by Ellen Petry Leanse, a former Apple and Google employee. The gist of it was that people (read: women) should stop saying the word "just" so often because it hurts their credibility in the workplace.

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Entry 10:  Metathesis and Identity: ‘aks’ and ‘ask’

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Entry 10:  Metathesis and Identity: ‘aks’ and ‘ask’

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I was inspired to write about the controversy surrounding ‘aks’ and ‘ask’ after Prof. MacKenzie forwarded my class Cecelia Cutler’s survey on NYC English. She encouraged us to send it out to other NYCE speakers, so I sent it to my parents who were particularly struck by the question which asked if the respondent would be likely to hire someone who uses ‘aks’ in place of ‘ask.’ They were surprised that this could be such a big deal in a workplace setting (probably because they were surrounded by speakers who use this form when growing up), but they admitted that they held arbitrary judgements that this form indicated a lack of education.

Knowing that this was simply a case of metathesis, I found two articles, one from Dr. John McWhorter for the LA Times, and the other from NPR WNYC, explaining the cultural significance of ‘aks’ and how it began as a simple variation, but ended up as an identity marker for black Americans.

I was surprised to find that the form originated as ‘acsian’ and ‘ask’ is the true case of metathesis. This proves further how the prescriptivist judgement of ‘aks’ being a marker of poor education is really just rooted in systemic racism (whether the judge intends it or not). I was also surprised to find in both articles that many black Americans want to eliminate the ‘aks’ form, or at least teach young speakers to code-switch to the MAE form ‘ask’ in high-stakes situations such as a job interview.

While McWhorter’s article focused on the tragedy that is prescriptivism and judgements against ‘aks,’ I liked that the NPR story covered the fact that ‘ask’ might get AAE speakers (and other ‘aks’ users) ahead in formal situations, but ‘aks’ has a positive effect in social situations amongst other ‘aks’ users and can be a powerful in-group marker which brings people together.

As does McWhorter, I hope that the use of ‘aks’ becomes less stigmatized in the future, and I think citing the data that this word originates as ‘acsian’ is a powerful persuading tool to prescriptivists that want to uphold some sort of “original” language.

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Few things stick out more in black American speech than the pronunciation of "ask" as "ax." And when I say that it "sticks out," I'm being polite.

Attitudes about Ebonics have evolved somewhat as hip hop has become America's favorite music. Even the strictest grammarian would have to agree that Kanye West's "Gold Digger" in standard English wouldn't be worth hearing. And Americans from Jesse Pinkman in "Breaking Bad" to Key and Peele get that it's OK to speak "hood" when you're among friends.

But "ax" is a special case. It's often the first thing even black people bring up as an example of bad grammar. Garrard McClendon, a black professor and talk show host, has titled a book "Aks or Ask: The African American Guide to Better English."

As a black linguist, I have come to expect that, during question sessions after any public talk I give on language, someone will ask: "What's with 'ax'?"

One answer a linguist can give is to cite history, pointing out how, in Old English, the word for "ask" swung randomly between ascian and acsian, and nobody batted an eye. But that answer never satisfies the audience. That was then, this is now, they suggest, and today, "ax" sounds ignorant. So why can't black people switch a couple of sounds around and stop saying it?

I want to try to answer that.

First, it's important to understand that, as English goes, "ax" is a perfectly normal thing to have happened to a word like "ask." Take the word "fish." It started as "fisk," with the same -sk ending that "ask" has. Over time, in some places people started saying "fisk" as "fiks," while in others they started saying "fisk" as "fish." After a while, "fish" won out over "fiks," and here we are today. The same thing happened with "mash." It started as "mask." Later some people were saying "maks" and others were saying "mash." "Mash" won.

With "ask," some people started saying "aks," and some started saying "ash." But this time, it wasn't "ash" that won out. Instead, for a while "aks" was doing pretty well. Even Chaucer used it in "The Canterbury Tales," in lines such as this one: "Yow loveres axe I now this questioun."

There is an element of chance in how words change over time, and we will never know why "aks" and "ash" lost out to "ask." All we know is that the people whose English was designated the standard happened to be among those who said "ask" instead of "aks" - and the rest is history.

Going forward, "aks" was used primarily by uneducated people, including indentured servants, whom black slaves in America worked alongside and learned English from. So, "aks" is no more a "broken" form of "ask" than "fish" is a "broken" version of ye olde "fisk." It's just that "fisk" isn't around anymore to remind us of how things used to be.

But even knowing that, we can't help thinking that standard English, even if arbitrary, should be standard. Shouldn't it be as simple to pick up the modern pronunciation of "ask" as it is to acquire a new slang word?

Here, then, is where the linguist breaks out the word "identity." The way people talk expresses their identity, we linguists say, tending to think such a statement should end the conversation. But it doesn't. A perfectly reasonable person might ask: Why not identify with proper language? Moreover, using the word "identity" makes the matter sound deliberate, while most black people's embrace of "ax" is not a conscious decision.

We need to offer a better explanation. Here's my try.

The first thing to understand is that, for black people, "ax" has a different meaning than "ask." Words are more than sequences of letters, and "ax" is drunk in from childhood. "Ax" is a word indelibly associated not just with asking but with black people asking. That sentiment alone is powerful enough to cut across conscious decisions about what is standard or proper.

"Ax," then, is as integral a part of being a black American as are subtle aspects of carriage, demeanor, humor and religious practice. "Ax" is a gospel chord in the form of a word, a facet of black being - which is precisely why black people can both make fun of and also regularly use "ax," even as college graduates.

Yet nothing can stop people from hearing "ax" as illiterate, which makes the word a small tragedy in its way. When a black speaker gets the most comfortable, the most articulate, the most herself - that is exactly when she is likely to slide in an "ax" for "ask." Immediately she sounds ignorant to any nonblack person who hears her, not to mention to quite a few black ones.

Yet I hope that my small contribution to the pro-axive literature might help some of us hear "ax" in a different way. The simple fact is that because "ax" is blackness, it has survived and will continue to.
John McWhorter teaches linguistics, American studies and Western civilization at Columbia University. His next book, "The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in any Language," comes out in April.

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Few things stick out more in black American speech than the pronunciation of "ask" as "ax." And when I say that it "sticks out," I'm being polite. Attitudes about Ebonics have evolved somewhat as hip hop has become America's favorite music.

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Since I find myself using the word ‘just’ often, I wanted to explore this as a linguistic phenomenon and further research differences between the way men and women speak. I found two articles with different outlooks on policing women’s speech, but in particular, policing the use of ‘just’ as a softening word. The first article written by Stacey Lastoe describes a Google Chrome plug-in called Just Not Sorry which will read through your email and underline softening words such as ‘just’ and ‘I think.’ This service is well-intentioned and was founded by women who want to eliminate workplace bias; however, it poses some questions about reinforcing that women's speech is incorrect. The author of this article acknowledged this perspective, but after analyzing her own speech, realized that she too used softeners often and wanted to try to stop.

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Way back when, my high school English teacher, Mrs. Skoog, told my all-women's class to stop qualifying our speech and our writing with the word "just." Along with teaching us the proper way to use a semicolon and how to write a thesis paragraph, Mrs. Skoog encouraged us to read female authors and to say and write what we meant with confidence and authority-the way men did.

Her words of wisdom stuck with me, and while I recall Mrs. Skoog every time I hear myself say "just"-a word that "shrinks your power," according to women's leadership expert Tara Mohr -I also know it's rather difficult to break the habit.

Enter Chrome extension Just Not Sorry, a Gmail plug-in that warns you when you use words such as "just," "I'm sorry," "I think," "Does that make sense?" "I'm no expert," and "actually"-words or phrases that serve to undermine your authority and discredit your skills and knowledge. They are softening words, and while you rely on them to sound like a team player, what you're actually doing is dampening your voice and expertise.

Recently, Slate writer Christina Cauterucci, skeptical of the app because of the way it purports to tell women that they've been speaking and writing incorrectly, spoke with Tami Reiss, one of the founders, about the plug-in. Reiss, who believes that women subconsciously use words that ultimately work against them professionally, has made it her new year's resolution to clean up her email and get rid of the offensive language peppering her paragraphs. She says that by checking in on the tendency to pad words, ideas, and even questions, women will "sharpen their self-awareness to address workplace bias."

The hope is greater equality in the workplace and stronger, more confident women. While I downloaded it with just as much skepticism as Cauterucci, I did notice a lot of red underlining in my emails-which goes to show that I'm guilty of using these words more than I realized. And while I think some softening language is sometimes needed, I'd prefer to sound in control and definitive and have my words matter-rather than sound soft and sweet, careful of not coming across as demanding.

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You're Actually Not Sorry-and This App Will Help You Stop Saying it So Much in Email

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Way back when, my high school English teacher, Mrs. Skoog, told my all-women's class to stop qualifying our speech and our writing with the word "just." Along with teaching us the proper way to use a semicolon and how to write a thesis paragraph, Mrs.

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My mom forwarded me this YouTube video (linked below) of John McWhorter discussing Trump’s language with Brian Williams which her friend sent to her after hearing that I was studying linguistics. It stood out to me since it seemed very prescriptivist in nature, and all of John McWhorter’s work that I’ve looked at previously has been extremely descriptivist in nature. After further searching, I found an article that McWhorter wrote for The Atlantic a few months before the news clip was released.

In the short clip, McWhorter likens Trump’s speech to that of a drunken, poolside, uncle and belittles his repeated use of certain phrases. He argues that Trump has a small vocabulary, and that he is the first president to not show any effort in making his speech more formal.

In the article, he expands on the claims made in the video and focuses more on what Trump’s speech says about him, rather than just calling him out for having ‘poor’ speech. McWhorter claims that Trump’s language use is simply unmonitored speech, and that given his powerful position as president of the United States, the contexts of when he uses language almost always ‘require’ more calculated, planned speech. He acknowledges that regular citizens make grammar and Tweet-orthography ‘mistakes,’ but that in Trump’s case it connotes a careless attitude.

As much as I dislike Trump (and that’s a lot), I do find it interesting that McWhorter backsteps on his typical descriptivist stance to criticize him. I think that we should definitely hold Trump to a higher standard in all aspects of life, but I wonder if his simple speech pattern is actually something that helps him reach his supporters. In addition, I wonder how biases about Trump’s politics affects how we view his language use; especially in McWhorter’s case (and my own) I think it is easier to criticize Trump’s language because we already do not like him.

This relates to our class topic of speech style because McWhorter’s consensus was that Trump’s use of style is almost always inappropriate because any time he speaks he is representing our country. Across different contexts, Trump does not seem to style-shift away from his typical, informal, basic speech that has become infamous and a target for many comedic impressions. I wonder if the threat of losing the presidency will cause him to evaluate his language use and formalize his speech in public contexts.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwnpa3KhT4Y

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Trump is the first president who, rather than striding forward and speaking, just gets up and talks.

Leah Mills / Reuters

"I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be Russia. Sort of a double negative. So you can put that in. And I think that probably clarifies things pretty good by itself."

In this post-Helsinki feint in defense of his endorsement of Vladimir Putin's denial about meddling in America's election over the ironclad findings of the FBI, Donald Trump's hallmark traits were on display in rather awesome consistency. The mendacity was as serene, the ignorance as infinite, and the sensitivity to protocol as numb as always-and all complemented by the now-familiar clubfooted approach to language. "Sort of" a double negative: Why the sloppy hedge on something so urgent, except as a giveaway that he knew he was lying? "Clarifies things pretty good": That good is solid, backyard-barbecue colloquial, but mightn't we use the form that goes with wearing a tie and speaking to the world: well?

And so it went in the run-up to this whole catastrophe. His estimation of NATO: "I believe NATO's a very important-probably the greatest ever done." But, a very important what? Greatest what? And whatever unspecified kind of institution had slipped off of his mental parsing tree, just what makes NATO apparently the most estimable example in world history of whatever it is?

"I told May how to do Brexit," he crowed-but a complex process like Brexit is more something one superintends, executes, or, even if one seeks a less lofty tone, handles. One does rock, paper, scissors; one does kegs at a frat party-upon which it is relevant that one talks of "doing Brexit" over beers. His take on immigration to Europe: "You go through certain areas that didn't exist 10 or 15 years ago." If Trump is perceiving new terrains emerging from the time-space continuum, it perhaps evidences the genius-level intelligence he imputes to himself.

But more plausibly, this was just unconsidered. Reading and hearing the president's statements on grave matters of state, it's hard to remember that it was the president who phrased them that way. Many find the way Trump expresses himself irritating, and not just in terms of uncharitable content, but in terms of sheer style and feel. Some have even speculated that his speech indicates mental deterioration.

However, what that analysis gains in drama it loses in scientific necessity. The essence of "Trumptalk" is something quite ordinary, what linguists call unmonitored language. The kink is that formality, impact, and gravity typically elicit monitored language. Writing is deliberate, allowing us to edit, amend, and correct. The formal statement-as in, to the American public and the world beyond-is typically either read from writing, or even if ad libbed is couched carefully and reflectively in the same air as writing. Unmonitored language is most of the language in the typical person's life: casual speech, texts, tweets. Humans are genetically specified to use it and none has ever been known to lack it-it comes easily.

Trump takes it easy. It only compounds the pain and embarrassment so many Americans feel when watching spectacles such as his taking a knee before a foreign power accused of harming the U.S. electoral process. It's bad enough that Trump lacks the substance to care about his job beyond how it impacts his score-keeping sense of ego. What makes it worse is that-in line with his lecturing government leaders on the basis of gut feelings, blithely stepping in front of the Queen, scarfing his Big Macs, and lacking an impulse to even pretend to have any interest in the arts-he is the first president who, rather than striding forward and speaking, just gets up and talks. Welcome to the queer circumstance of unmonitored language as officialese.

This improvisatory approach to communication explains all else that grates and perplexes about how this man shares his mind. Trump's tweets often contain random capitalization: "Jerry Brown is trying to back out of the National Guard at the Border, but the people of the State are not happy. Want Security & Safety NOW!" Here, he is of all things antiquarian-by accident, of course. There was a vogue for using capitals in this way in English in the late-17th and early-18th centuries. Before English was standardized, many writers chose to capitalize words on a whim to lend a hit of Mrs. Dash. This was often done inconsistently, with some nouns capitalized and some not.

Even presidents weren't immune: John Adams wrote in 1804: "We braced our feet against the Bed boards and Bedsteads to prevent us from having our Brains bashed out against the Planks and Timbers of the Ship." Why not capitalize feet? Maybe because feet seem a tad undignified compared to planks? That's a shaky case, especially when requiring us to limn bashed-out Brains as of a higher station than feet. Adams was "just writing" to his son.

Today, Trump tweets to the world in the same spontaneous, come-what-may frame of mind, growling to the media that he capitalizes "for emphasis" as if he were writing in the Jacksonian era, the last era in which anyone who wanted to be taken seriously was using capitals in this way. Trump misses that the very context of a statement coming from a president conveys a kind of emphasis in itself-because he is simply "talking," which also explains his fondness for Twitter, a kind of fingered speech.

Or take the fact that in the very tweet in which Trump trumpeted his right to use capitals for emphasis, he told us that "the Fake News constantly likes to pour over my tweets looking for a mistake." Unless Trump intended the liquid connotation, this is a typo, and a rather glaring one-suggesting again a basic lack of attention. Here is a president who is sharing with us without checking it over first. Generously, we might imagine that he uses a spell-check but that even such programs miss misspellings that are other words, such as pour. But this analysis founders upon Trump's references in other tweets to "unpresidented" acts, such as President Barack Obama daring to "tapp" his phone. Trump clearly is no champion speller-"NO COLUSION" was scrawled on the typescript of his "double negative" script. Many of us aren't-but we'd make sure nobody knew it if we were president. Trump can't be bothered.

He who capitalizes state for no reason quite naturally pours over press criticisms of his performance-or, shall we say, press covfefe. This has been perhaps the most confounding token of Trumptalk yet, when the president regaled us one night with a complaint about "constant negative press covfefe." The word is less mysterious than it seems-the issue is less what it means than what would lead someone to write it, and a quick look at your hands on a keyboard pretty much gives it away. Trump started to write coverage, but after the v, a finger, likely the pointer, drifted up to the f, after which the middle finger settled down upon the e up to the northwest, which lifted the pointer up a bit only to settle back down, followed by the middle finger one more time ... That is, the commander in chief fell asleep at the keyboard (in his language, Fell Asleep), typed gibberish by accident, and upon jerking awake, finished the tweet and hit send without even checking the text. The covfefe text is likely the first verbiage a president has ever sent from the most utterly unmonitored of realms a human regularly inhabits: the Land of Nod.

Monitored language aims outward, referring to and addressing the wider world. Unmonitored language tends to be more about the self, more personal-hence something that always seems faintly juvenile about Trumptalk, his use of total and totally. "She totally likes you," a young man says to another, against which we might compare Trump's recent claim that he deserves "total credit" for increasing NATO's contribution to defense spending. "I deserve total credit" sounds like something one of Trump's grandsons would say, but actually reveals Trump in a finer grain. "She totally likes you" does not mean that she likes you in a complete fashion. The man saying that is implying, with that usage of total, that some people may deny that she likes you but that in actuality she does. Similarly, "We're totally getting tickets" implies an unspoken reason that some might expect us not to. "I deserve total credit," then, means People think I don't deserve credit but I do. In other words, Trump's use of total stems from his defensiveness of his own fragile ego. We seek a report in monitored language from the NATO summit, and Trump gives us unmonitored language about what he thinks about ... himself.

Trumptalk is partly a sign of the times. Not too many decades ago, someone seeking political office and communicating like Trump would have been jeered into obscurity after his first few sentences at the lectern. However, that was also an era when men wore hats, dances had steps, and premarital sex was officially treated as sinful. In a less cosseted America, public oratorical standards have inevitably changed as well, such that figures like George W. Bush and Sarah Palin could achieve considerable influence despite having flagrant trouble rubbing a noun and a verb together.

Bush, however, always seemed a touch embarrassed at his gaffe-prone nature, and Palin, as quiet as it's kept, is actually a much more fluent writer than she is a speaker-no silly Capitalization and misspeling for her. Yet as history defines deviance downward as always, it is hardly a surprise that today someone can become president who takes this linguistic come-as-you-are attitude a step further, with no sense of public service as something larger and more deliberate than yammering, petulant chest beating and trash talk. Naturally, then, he is comfortable arrantly lying about meaning to say the opposite of what he said about Putin, as if people typically leave off something as crucial as the negating n't when speaking of that which is ... not. If it's all just talk, then certainly furtive fixes are fine, as if presidential statements were scrawls on a blackboard.

Hence we see and hear Trump communicate daily in the unvarnished way we used to only experience from presidents in private tape recordings released decades after the fact. It used to be part of the very definition, albeit tacitly, of being a president that one did not "just talk." We savor snippets of what Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Barack Obama "just said" in off-the-record reportage and latterly memoirs. But with a president who casually calls third-world countries "shitholes" in formal meetings, the memoirs will teach us little we don't already know. What used to be peeks at the unvarnished are now just the daily news.

The gaffes, lurches, rudenesses, and infelicities allow, it must be said, a certain transparency. No one could say that Trump uses language to dissimulate: The whole man is always blazingly on view. That's just the problem: Trump speaks as an unmonitored self, making it up as he goes along, rather than in the monitored style of a nation outlining ideals. Trump is the first president we get to hear on a hot mike 24/7.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

John McWhorter is a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He teaches linguistics at Columbia University, hosts the podcast Lexicon Valley, and is the author, most recently, of Words on the Move.

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Trump is the first president who, rather than striding forward and speaking, just gets up and talks. "I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be Russia. Sort of a double negative. So you can put that in. And I think that probably clarifies things pretty good by itself."