Dear Abby: I am a linguist who teaches English at a university in California.
Language has always fascinated me, and one phenomenon that I have noticed recently is the overuse of the word “basically.” Have you noticed this?
At an international conference for English teachers I attended last year, I kept a running tally of the times I heard the word “basically.” Within one 50-minute session, one presenter used “basically” 12 times!
I told my mother about it, and she wrote the following poem:
Basically
I’ve heard things described from A to Z
And they always start out, “basically.”
It’s basically good, or basically bad
It’s basically happy, or basically sad.
It’s swept through the nation like a great big flood
“Basically” is basically in everyone’s blood.
When you get down to basics, basically for me
I hear it and tune it out automatically.
Basically has become a boring refrain
Basically, “basically” drives me insane.
Sick of Basically in Fresno
Dear Sick: I, too, am sick of “basically.” Overusing a word indicates a limited vocabulary. I nominate “for the most part” as an acceptable alternative for “basically.”
Dear Abby: My problem is one I rarely see addressed in your column. I have a daughter who is 5 years old and in kindergarten. She has been taught not to talk to strangers. Unfortunately, strangers don’t seem to want to leave her alone. We cannot go to the grocery store without some man-usually older-speaking to her or touching her.
Last summer, we had a frightening experience when a strange man grabbed her and tickled her roughly. It took my hysterical screaming to get him to let go of her, and then he acted like I was a nut.
When I try to explain to these men that my daughter is not allowed to talk to strangers, they invariably say, “It’s all right; I’m a grandfather!” (As though that ensures he’s not a pervert.)
How am I supposed to act? Perverts don’t wear signs to identify themselves. So how do I know who is OK and who is not?
Muriel D. in Washington
Dear Muriel: You are rightly disturbed when strangers approach your daughter, but please remember that older people were brought up in a time when violence was not so widespread and children were taught to be friendly.
Most strangers mean no harm, but because there is no way to know who is harmless and who is not, you must continue to teach your daughter to be wary of all strangers. You must also teach her how to respond to strangers and how to fight back and get away if necessary.
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