Charlie and I watch a lot of home remodeling shows that always culminate in a “reveal” where the clients and/or their friends and relatives inspect the beautified property.
These are so-called “reality” shows, so they purport to be non-fiction even though the dialogue is scripted and the property owners are obviously attuned to everything that has happened prior to the scene being shot. The amateurish actresses often use very affected speech, like “What a gorrrrrrrrgeous view of the beach!” or “That nursery room is sooooooo sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet!”
The big “reveal” is always accompanied by exclamations of surprise, astonishment, and amazement as the homeowners and their friends enter each room of the home that has been transformed. “This isn’t our house!” is a commonly used script line. There are audible gasps from the women (men never gasp, for some reason!) and the usual “Oh, My God!”, “Oh, My Gosh!”, “My Word!”, “My Stars”, etc., all separated by pauses, as in “Oh (pause) My (pause) Goodness!”.
My suspicion: there is one scriptwriter who supplies all of the dialogue for every home remodeling show on TV.
I’m imagining the scene rehearsal/walk-through, where each of the participants get to choose their exclamation from a printed list, as OMGs are pretty standard no matter in what part of the country the show is being produced in. Some women gasp upon entering every space in the house, including mud and laundry room, as if they’ve just seen a naked man. Every once in a while, the astonished homeowner/lousy actress gasps before she opens she opens the door, trying (I suppose) to outdo Meryl Streep.
The husbands have also been in on the rehearsing because the Lunch Bucket Joes will utter interior design terms and phrases like “luxury vinyl”, “shiplap”, “farmhouse sink”, “subway tile”, and noting design elements that really “pop”. (Yeah, and how often do cab drivers and mailmen use the word “juxtaposition”?)
Sometimes the women are so dumbfounded by the miraculous transformations (“SHUT UP!” they will exclaim) that they cover their lips with their hands or, my favorite, fan their face with the fingers of one hand, creating some kind of primitive air conditioning effect, I’m guessing.
The men typically don’t gush as much, probably holding back their thoughts about the cost of the extravagant finishes and the change orders. If they could, they’d probably exclaim something like “Holy Moley!”, “No F’ing Way!”, “You gotta be sh.ting me!”, “For God’s sake!”, “I’ll be Goddamned!”, or something more colorful.”
“Heavens to Betsy!” and “Gee Willikers!”, where do all these odd exclamations come from?
My old boss, CEO Larry Parrish, used to brief his lieutenants after a Board meeting and, if some amazingly stupid proposal surfaced, would punch up his monologue with an exclamation of simultaneous disbelief and disgust, “Jesus, Joseph and Mary!” I’m pretty sure Larry was brought up Catholic and was admonished if he used cuss words. Acceptable Catholic substitutes might have included, “Saints preserve us!”, “Mother of God!”, “Jeez!”, “Goldarn!”, “Sheesh!”, “Dang!”, “Friggin’”, “Hells bells!”, “Sonofagun!”, “Crips Mickey!” and the like: almost nasty, but not quite blasphemous.
Lots of people say things that not only don’t make sense but also pervert the English language.
Many of the remodeling shows that we watch are filmed in the South, so it is common to hear the term “Y’all” used. I can understand using that hokey term in a CROWD of people, but down in Dixie it is normal to address a married couple that way. “What were y’all thinking about backsplash?” Now, if an interior designer is standing in front of a couple and asking the question, doesn’t a simple “you” suffice? (Particularly since the wife makes those decisions 99 percent of the time!)
What does the word “fix” mean? How about correct or repair? Why is it then that Southerners are always “fixin’ to go”, “fixin’ to do barbeque”, “fixin’ to demo the house”, etc.? This term doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
We watch a lot of real-life crime dramas where policemen are wearing videocams and are talking to actual perpetrators, suspects, and fellow officers. It’s not surprising to me to hear bad English from high school dropouts, but I am surprised when patrolmen and detectives utter horribly mangled syntax like, “The subject had went…” or “He had saw…”. (I hope that crummy English didn’t make it into the official report. How embarrassing it would be if that officer had to read his incident report in court!)
Many of the suspects or actual “perps” in these real life dramas are inner city residents who speak a street version of English. It is common to hear that someone “be” doing something, “He done gone off and…”, “Where is the money at?”, “He ain’t say no names”, “Anybody that know me…”, “He done it hisself”, “I ain’t want nowhere near that shit!”, “We wasn’t there”, and such. (Yeah, you weren’t there in English class, for sure.)
Closer to home, there is an epidemic in this country among Generation X, Y, and Z’er women who favor the word “like” to describe a myriad of meanings. “He was like…”, “I was like…”, “They were like…”. etc. This was known as “Valley Speak” back in the 1980’s in Southern California, and might have been popularized by Moon Zappa and/or the self-absorbed high school socialites in the teen movie “Clueless”.
“Like” in this usage appears to mean what someone is or might be thinking but not actually saying, although it is hard to distinguish what is actual verbalization and what is not. We had a neighbor friend, a 50’ish lady, who talked in this manner. Her rambling conversations went something like this:
I went to the gas station and I was like, “What the hell, these prices are obscene!” My girlfriend was like totally upset about it, too. We were like, “Damn that Joe Biden!” On the way out of the gas station, I was like “Maybe I should get a hybrid?” Like, who knows where this inflation is going, anyway? Maybe I should, like, ride my bike everywhere? My girlfriend just got a new puppie who is like real cute. I think he’s like a ChiWeenie or something, and it cost her like $1,000! Inflation… like I’m totally done with it, you know what I’m sayin’?
It was very hard to understand whether our friend (or her friend) actually said any of these things or merely thought them when using the introductory “like”. To be honest, I don’t have the slightest idea what’s she’s saying.
Like Gabby Hayes’ “Jumpin’ Jehosaphat!”… what in the Sam Hill is this person talking about??
I be totally confused.