Kinda Sorta

In my post of 12/14/24 (“Annoyances”), I listed some of the more annoying aspects of current human behavior. One item was the following:

“Uptalk. Enunciating a statement as if it were a question; constant rising intonation. Especially annoying on men. Makes them sound like little girls.”

I had hoped that with the change in atmosphere following the advent of the Trump Administration, a more masculine manner of speech would be heard across the land. Sure, I expected to still be subjected to pathetic feminized uptalking from a twenty-something woke moron working at Whole Foods, but among our thought leaders, absolutely not. Unfortunately, it seems that everywhere I look, even among bright individuals with good ideas, the plague has not ceased; if anything, it has worsened.

Another verbal tic that has spread far and wide is the constant use of the words “kind of” and “sort of.” Or, in more rapid speech, kinda and sorta. Yesterday I began watching a podcast featuring an expert in economic and financial affairs. This was an intelligent person, not a Leftist by any stretch of the imagination. Almost every definitive statement was preceded by kind of or sort of. I was not able to watch more than a couple of minutes. It was kind of, sort of, like, you know, well, very exhausting.

These words do have a use case. There are times that one wishes to qualify an assertion, as in “her demeanor was sort of hostile, though I couldn’t point to anything explicit.” But when making a factual statement, the usage is inappropriate. There is no reason to say “the Fed kind of held interest rates where they are, with no change.” The Fed didn’t kind of hold them, they held them, period.

The effect is the same as with uptalking: information ceases to be communicated as cold, hard facts. Everything is in question, and nobody wants to commit.

​Given the multiple crises and challenges we face today, there has never been a time that demands more forceful, unequivocal speech. What we do not need to convey is weakness, uncertainty, and self-doubt.