Really? Actually? Literally?

So William Gibson published a new book earlier this summer, The Peripheral. I've been thinking about writing something on it for a while now. I even made some notes trying to figure out if there is some kind of pattern or meaning I could attribute to single versus multiple narrative POVs. But, fuck it. Two things.

First, you know things are completely fucked up when a Gibson book ends, "and then everyone got married and started living a healthier lifestyle (watching what they eat and how much they drink), some people had kids who will grow up to be caring adults and useful members of society, and everyone started doing yoga and shit because it's good for you."

Seriously, look at how Gibson's books end and watch the pattern emerge. There is an inverse correlation between the ending of his books (the beginning of the unknown and unknowable future from the perspective of the private universe of the novel) and the actual unknown and unknowable future from the perspective of the author. When the real future is kind of chaotic and dangerous as hell but still exciting and a cause of optimism the narrative future is dismal and bleak. And vice versa. Or maybe Bill is just getting old. Who can say?

The second thing is Gibson has been infected with the virus that causes him use the word "actually" way too often. "He was actually quite excited...", "She was actually sick...", "It was actually big...". It isn't as bad as "literally" but it's still annoying. And when I thought about it for a while and realized he meant "really" instead of "actually" it got even more annoying.

[Author's note: Since I haven't been writing in this too often I ACTUALLY proof read this one and found I had ACTUALLY used the word ACTUAL above, "the ACTUAL unknown and unknowable..." I did, however, use it to mean what it ACTUALLY means.]

My theory is people use actually instead of really because saying actually is kind of fun and saying really feels silly. AK-chewly. Or, if you are Canadian and pronounce your diphthongs like you are supposed to, Ak-chewel-ee.

Really sounds like everything else that ends in EE - like a stripper name of a word made up for little kids.

My theory about literally is people say it for the pauses. "It was...literally...something that wasn't figurative".

And my theory about all this micromanaging of our own vocabularies, our syntax, our speech, is because of the fucking internet. Twenty years ago there was no way for "literally" to enter our consciousness as something you should make fun of people for. The trolls have us policing our own speech to the extent we now use actually just because it sounds smarter than really. But on the other hand, porn. I guess we call the whole internet thing a wash.

Throw in DLing music for free and the internet starts to look like a win. Maybe. I'm still going to bitch about it tho.