actual<\/a>” litters my conversation. I found this out after listening to another co-worker who used the word “actual” several times in almost every sentence he spoke during a presentation.<\/p>\nHaving been sensitized to it, I started hearing it in my own sentences. Like “to be completely honest with you,” it is both meaningless and a space filler. In almost any sentence, the word “actual” can be dropped without changing the meaning of the sentence. I find it difficult to locate exceptions, that is… sentences which require the word.<\/p>\n
Actually, I am finding it very difficult to remove the actual word “actual” from my actual, everyday actual usage.<\/p>\n
(sigh)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have a co-worker who starts many, many sentences with one or the other of two phrases: “To tell you the truth,” or “To be completely honest with you.” Now… any repetition grates on me (long story) but inanities like these really get to me. I fully expect that my co-worker will be honest with … Continue reading “I think I might hate the word "actual."”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgY3e-2D","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":71,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=71","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":0},"title":"The Co-Worker Sales Pitch","author":"Jorah","date":"July 27, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":998,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=998","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":1},"title":"Trying to revive the blog…","author":"Jorah","date":"July 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm trying to get myself back into writing. I've been keeping up pretty well with my knitting, but have been so busy at work that when I'm at home I usually feel too tired to write much of anything. However... I've discovered that I miss posting here, so after a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=macmethods&l=as2&o=1&a=1580174825","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1062,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1062","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":2},"title":"Civics… without the simpering patriotism","author":"Jorah","date":"November 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"After the resistance is, eventually, successful*, Americans of good will have to be ready to work hard \u2014 probably for many years \u2014 to rebuild our civic structures. I\u2019m trying to imagine what a strong civic life would be like, stripped of the old adoring nationalism & of many of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Social commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Social commentary","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=46"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1302,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1302","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":3},"title":"‘Bigotry’ vs ‘Racisim’","author":"Jorah","date":"September 15, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"If you've ever wondered why some folks differentiate between the apparent synonyms 'bigotry' and 'racism,' here's why I make that distinction: Anyone can be bigoted, but racism is built in to our social structure. My guess is that most adults have some strain of bigotry in them, controlled or not,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophizing"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophizing","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=59"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1092,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1092","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":4},"title":"…can essentially get away with anything…","author":"Jorah","date":"December 4, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"People talk about breaking paradigms. I'm not sure anyone in modern times has shattered them, ground them to dust, then paved over them like Dear Leader. It occurred to me that he's essentially broken the underlying assumptions that form the fabric of public society. He's discovered that the only thing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Social commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Social commentary","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=46"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":801,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=801","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":5},"title":"Center-left","author":"Jorah","date":"November 25, 2015","format":"aside","excerpt":"Possible essay topic I'm mulling over. I'm not gradually moving left on the American political spectrum because I have some love for governmental intervention (rather the opposite, I suspect). No, I'm moving left because most of the kindest people I know seem to be on that end of the spectrum.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophizing"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophizing","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=59"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}