Let Mrs Betty Bowers spend 3m42s talking to you about language.
September 26, 2017 11:05 PM   Subscribe

Speak English? YOU FIRST! Almost 20 Words/Expressions You Need to Humanely Euthanize Now. Featuring Deven Green. Written by Andrew Bradley.

Mrs Betty Bowers has a REMINDER: You don't get to mock people for being "PC" "Snowflakes" when you get triggered by someone saying "Happy Holiday!"
posted by hippybear (71 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
Good god, that was odious, and mostly just wrong. I couldn't get through the whole thing, but:

- Literally has been used as an intensifier for literally centuries, including by writers like Shakespeare, Dickens, Melville, Austen, and Hemingway. If you're trying to get people to stop using it that way because it's a pet peeve, fine. But acting like it's "wrong" and you're a defender of the English language just makes you a pompous, uninformed idiot.
- "Exact same" is not the fucking same thing as "same". Intensifiers add nuance. Fuckig deal with it.
- You don't have to know what the word "wheelhouse" means to know what the phrase "in my wheelhouse" means. There are plenty of words like this in English: caboodle, skelter, turpitude, eke, yore...I could go on.
- But above all, hiding behind a facade of "Oh, my being a pretentious asshole is part of the joke. Don't you get my clever irony?" to be an actual pretentious asshole doesn't make you any less of a pretentious asshole.
posted by tkfu at 12:04 AM on September 27, 2017 [69 favorites]


Someone should tell Bradley that "humanely euthanise" is redundant.
posted by Perodicticus potto at 12:24 AM on September 27, 2017 [7 favorites]


Yeah it wasn't, actually, very well written.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:00 AM on September 27, 2017


Oh dear.

At least when someone asks me for a good tutorial on how to be judgemental, I'll know where to point them now.
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 1:17 AM on September 27, 2017 [3 favorites]


Reflexive, automatic overusage of intensifiers literally makes them stop intensifying, and converts them into verbal tics that just clutter up your word-hole. Maybe that's literally behind some of the backlash.
posted by thelonius at 1:33 AM on September 27, 2017 [17 favorites]


I have overused "actually" for so long that I find myself hard-pressed to define the word. It's not quite meaningless to me, but close. So it's both habitual and annoying, even to me.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:59 AM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


So, uh, folks know that Mrs. Betty Bowers is a satirical account that uses the language or argumentation style of the right wing to criticize the right wing, with a particular emphasis on conservative evangelicals?
posted by eviemath at 3:12 AM on September 27, 2017 [37 favorites]


So...its intention is to be like nails on a chalkboard?
posted by the bricabrac man at 3:27 AM on September 27, 2017 [3 favorites]


"Literally", "actually", "exact" etc. are fillers and intensifiers.
They might not be entirely logical, but if you strip your language from everything that is not entirely logical, you'll sound like a robot.
posted by sour cream at 3:42 AM on September 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


Probably a good thing this won't upset anyone.
posted by filtergik at 4:27 AM on September 27, 2017


I know who Betty Bowers is, so I enjoyed this.
posted by 41swans at 4:59 AM on September 27, 2017 [6 favorites]


It's not quite meaningless to me, but close.

When you're studying foreign languages like German those kinds of quasi-meaningful words are called "flavoring words." In German there are words like "den," "ja," and "doch" that get used like that all the time to subtly flavor and color speech. In America in particular, I think we've squeezed a lot of the suppleness and life out of how we expect language to work in recent years. It's like we've completely abandoned any conscious awareness or consideration for connotative meaning and nuance of expression. Anything beyond bog standard, dull and colorless business speak reads as pretentious and self-indulgent or grandiose.
posted by saulgoodman at 5:09 AM on September 27, 2017 [14 favorites]


Gee, I thought she was kinda fun!
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 5:34 AM on September 27, 2017 [9 favorites]


I honestly thought that MetaFilter knew Betty Bowers already. I guess I should have provided more context.
posted by hippybear at 6:23 AM on September 27, 2017 [4 favorites]


So, uh, folks know that Mrs. Betty Bowers is a satirical account

Indeed I do (I've known about her since she started out on the Landover Baptist site). But I don't think "her" poorly-informed prescriptivism is meant to be taken in that spirit. Not unless tweets like this are also meant to be parodies of right-wing Christian views.
posted by Perodicticus potto at 6:40 AM on September 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


Isn't "I can't help but think" a double negative?
posted by JanetLand at 6:41 AM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


This felt a bit like a rejected Bill Maher monologue.
posted by Catblack at 6:43 AM on September 27, 2017 [4 favorites]


Isn't "I can't help but think" a double negative?

It is certainly not unlike one.
posted by thelonius at 7:09 AM on September 27, 2017 [9 favorites]


Uncanny Valley Girl (barf me out, gag me with a spoon, actually)
posted by chavenet at 7:11 AM on September 27, 2017 [5 favorites]


This was hilarious. I wish I could perfect that arch way of speaking so I could go as her for Halloween.
posted by asteria at 8:00 AM on September 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


Gee, I thought she was kinda fun!

MeFi is here to let you know your opinions are incorrect.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:05 AM on September 27, 2017 [12 favorites]


- But above all, hiding behind a facade of "Oh, my being a pretentious asshole is part of the joke. Don't you get my clever irony?" to be an actual pretentious asshole doesn't make you any less of a pretentious asshole.

Haha joke's on you! I was only pretending to be insufferable!
posted by FakeFreyja at 8:06 AM on September 27, 2017 [9 favorites]


It wasn't really about people misusing words like "actually", it was about people misusing words like "Christian".

Ah - so the ridiculous statements about what words "really" mean were a lead-up to the ridiculousness of the No True Scotsman fallacy? Clever!
posted by Perodicticus potto at 8:16 AM on September 27, 2017


those kinds of quasi-meaningful words are called "flavoring words."

They're called "particles." More have survived in German than in English. "Literally," "actually," etc. are just adverbs. Though there is a complex relationship between adverbs and particles.
posted by praemunire at 8:25 AM on September 27, 2017 [5 favorites]


MetaFilter: I was only pretending to be insufferable!
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:41 AM on September 27, 2017 [14 favorites]


Wait what are folks trying to prove by aggressively not getting the joke?
posted by Space Coyote at 8:55 AM on September 27, 2017 [6 favorites]


Wait what are folks trying to prove by aggressively not getting the joke?

Well, I think the "joke" just failed for a lot of people and they thought that this was a sincere idiot instead of a tired old ironic schtick.
posted by thelonius at 9:00 AM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


No one is "not getting" the joke. It's just not funny.
posted by FakeFreyja at 9:00 AM on September 27, 2017 [5 favorites]


Nobody would be persuaded of anything by this. It's not even pretending to try. But biscuits must be eaten I guess.
posted by hawthorne at 9:02 AM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


When your taking college German courses, the course material calls them "flavoring words," I meant, BTW. Look at that suppleness in action--more than one bland way to express an idea! Va-va-voooooom!
posted by saulgoodman at 9:05 AM on September 27, 2017


Personally I'd like folks to stop using the word "triggered" casually or ironically. This ship has sailed but I'm disheartened that progressives took the bait and joined conservatives in making the word "trigger" a joke.
posted by Emily's Fist at 9:30 AM on September 27, 2017 [11 favorites]


Sick Burn Hippybear! You are the first to say Happy Holidays, at the leading edge of this holiday season. I had to leave an actually out of this comment, and I did, thanks to your handy tutorial.
posted by Oyéah at 9:51 AM on September 27, 2017


Is dissonance delicious?
posted by lazycomputerkids at 9:53 AM on September 27, 2017


I just checked my AWAD(awordaday), and today's is illiterati.
noun: Illiterate or uninformed people.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 9:56 AM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


No one is "not getting" the joke. It's just not funny.

Well, now that that has been decided might as well close the post!
posted by asteria at 9:57 AM on September 27, 2017 [3 favorites]


a Christian shaming other Christians for being shitty Christians, not a Christian trying to make herself feel better about Christianity by excluding shitty Christians from the definition of "Christian".

someone of unknown beliefs posing as a stereotypical right-wing-Christian for LULs who doesn't write in an extremely consistent voice and can't help taking swipes at Trump in-character, even though it would be out of character?
posted by randomkeystrike at 10:05 AM on September 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


Can I just ask the people arguing in favor of "literally" as an intensifier, what word would you use to mean "literally" if "literally" means "figuratively"? "Figuratively"? "Literally literally"? "Really for real I mean it this time"?
posted by janey47 at 10:29 AM on September 27, 2017 [9 favorites]


Can I just ask the people arguing in favor of "literally" as an intensifier, what word would you use to mean "literally" if "literally" means "figuratively"? "Figuratively"? "Literally literally"? "Really for real I mean it this time"?

It think it is just supposed to join the shame-faced company of words with a secondary meaning opposite to their primary meaning. Like "comprise", which I have just stopped using altogether, since there is no chance that anyone will understand what I want to say by using it.
posted by thelonius at 10:37 AM on September 27, 2017 [4 favorites]


We use this pretty neat thing called context.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 10:37 AM on September 27, 2017 [4 favorites]


what word would you use to mean "literally" if "literally" means "figuratively"?

"I mean... like, actually literally literally literally? I mean, literally. So to speak."
posted by pracowity at 10:42 AM on September 27, 2017 [3 favorites]


I found this to be a quite enjoyable bit of humor and rhetoric. I look forward to adding it to the comments of every post my right-wing family members make on Facebook..
posted by JohnFromGR at 10:45 AM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


I like it.
posted by pracowity at 10:58 AM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


"Literally" has its first attested use as an amplifier sometime in the 1700s. Language is plastic and multivalent, which is a large part of what makes it fun.

You can cavil about kids these days and their literal murder of denotative meaning, but I can't help feeling like there might be better things to fill the day.

I am sympathetic to the worldview of whoever made this video, if I'm parsing it as intended, but it wasn't very funny.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 10:59 AM on September 27, 2017


Can I just ask the people arguing in favor of "literally" as an intensifier, what word would you use to mean "literally" if "literally" means "figuratively"?

From common usage that I tend to hear, "literally" isn't chosen to mean "figuratively" precisely because its use seems to be most frequent in a retelling of events such as "I literally shit my pants seeing that guy." or to express a heightened reaction to some circumstance that also is of the moment such as "That is literally the stupidest thing I've ever heard." In neither case is the intention to declaim an absolute, define a heirarchy, or otherwise make a claim of "truth". Instead, the intent seems to be to express an emotional state as if in the moment, not from a distance as the use of "figuratively" would do. So to say at this moment, thing x evoked as strong a reaction as one could imagine, matched with an intent to impress this state upon the listener as if they were involved in the event themselves.

Figuratively wouldn't work the same way, even if the speaker was aware of the word, as it adds a layer of reflection over the event, where the speaker is adopting a stance of speaking in the now looking back at thing x with the benefit of hindsight and able to frame the emotional state with a metaphor chosen for the listeners benefit. It would change the dynamic of the exchange from being the speakers inner perspective to one of a more shared space between speaker and listener, removing some of the immediacy that is sought to be communicated. Saying "That is figuratively the stupidest thing I've ever heard." or "I figuratively shit my pants seeing that guy" doesn't have the same effect as using literally does since it makes the listener more aware of the speaker constructing their speech rather than simply expressing their emotion.

That may be an extremely clumsy way of trying to explain how I often hear the word used, but the point is that I don't think its used in error for figuratively, but tends to have a unique usage of its own that there isn't a handy alternative for. That's how I tend to see most "wrong" usages. They're words put in to use for specific effect or meaning that isn't quite matched by other common words, even when the dictionary claims them as synonyms.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:08 AM on September 27, 2017 [9 favorites]


I literally thought Parks and Rec put an end to using "literally".
posted by Ber at 11:20 AM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


I literally thought Parks and Rec put an end to using "literally".

Did they literally decimate it?
posted by thelonius at 11:37 AM on September 27, 2017 [3 favorites]


Can I just ask the people arguing in favor of "literally" as an intensifier...

It's not really a matter of being for or against a particular usage. Words evolve through common usage. There is not, and never has been, a static, closed set of words and meanings. Dictionaries describe usage; they cannot prescribe it. There are countless examples of words whose meaning has done a 180 over time. Raging against this process is like shaking your fist at the sea.

See generally John McWhorter, Words on the Move, for more detailed analysis.
posted by Dobrovolets at 11:56 AM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


I have literally never been confused by the use of the word "literally" as an intensifier. It might be annoying, but in my anecdotal experience it is not a source of significant ambiguity in communication.

As an aside, there are many contranyms in English (cleave, clip, buckle, dust, fine, etc, etc) and most are also not ambiguous because we have contextual clues as to the intended meaning.
posted by Nothing at 11:58 AM on September 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


someone of unknown beliefs posing as a stereotypical right-wing-Christian for LULs who doesn't write in an extremely consistent voice and can't help taking swipes at Trump in-character, even though it would be out of character?

She's an actor doing a bit. If you have a problem with the writing, here is your guy.
posted by 41swans at 12:20 PM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


Ha ha, jokes on you! I've been pretending not to be insufferable all along! And I mean that in a figuratively literal sense.
posted by blue_beetle at 12:22 PM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


This thread is really fascinating to me.

Can someone do a post on The Importance of Being Earnest, so we can talk about the accuracy of Late Victorian representations of contemporary elites?
posted by conic at 12:24 PM on September 27, 2017


There are countless examples of words whose meaning has done a 180 over time. Raging against this process is like shaking your fist at the sea.

And by "countless," I mean "I can't be bothered to count them" rather than "It's literally impossible to count them."
posted by layceepee at 12:56 PM on September 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


If you have a problem with the writing, here is your guy.

Born in 1986 - so does that mean he started writing "Betty's" material as a teenager (she's been around at least since 2001), or did he take over from someone else? If the latter, that explains why I remember the earlier stuff as being funnier (or at least truer to the character being portrayed).

The issue I have with Bradley is that, as randomkeystrike suggests, he seems to be trying to do two things with the character at once, and not doing either of them particularly well. His shtick is basically "LOL XTIANS AMIRITE," and there's a big enough audience for that stuff that he doesn't need to try harder.

I'm an agnostic with a strong dislike of evangelical Christianity (though not of evangelical Christians), and before I got an app that filtered my Facebook feed, I got mighty tired of my fellow heathens sharing Betty Bowers and literally (yeah LITERALLY) any other lazy religion-bashing crap they came across. Especially since they would occasionally change it up with a meme declaring that, despite having been snickering about invisible sky fairies an hour ago, they knew what truuuuuue Christianity was, and right-wing evangelicals didn't practice it. Add in the fact that people also constantly share smug and inaccurate memes about alleged grammatical mistakes, and this video really pushed all the buttons for me.

not a Christian trying to make herself feel better about Christianity by excluding shitty Christians from the definition of "Christian".

She asks certain Christians not to call themselves Christian, which seems to qualify as No True Scotsman to me, but I can see this discussion is winding you up, so I'm happy to leave it there.
posted by Perodicticus potto at 1:01 PM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


Raging against this process is like shaking your fist at the sea.

ON THE OTHER HAND, simply calling attention to the descriptivist practices of lexicography does not mean that any criticism of a usage as debased or ugly must automatically be discarded. There are other stakeholders, in the parlance of our times, in linguistic affairs: editors, for example.
posted by thelonius at 1:19 PM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


Born in 1986 - so does that mean he started writing "Betty's" material as a teenager (she's been around at least since 2001), or did he take over from someone else? If the latter, that explains why I remember the earlier stuff as being funnier (or at least truer to the character being portrayed).

Everything I've seen indicates that Bradley is the originator and creator of the character.
posted by 41swans at 1:31 PM on September 27, 2017


Seems earlier material was credited to a Paul Bradley. Hmm.
posted by Perodicticus potto at 1:40 PM on September 27, 2017


As far as "flavor" words go, the over-use of "literally" and "actually" is the flavor equivalent of putting ketchup on everything.
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:02 PM on September 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


Metafilter: here to let you know your opinions are incorrect
posted by numaner at 5:24 PM on September 27, 2017


it bothered me that her eyes were moving as she was reading. She needs to be filmed from further away but at a close up for the same framing but her eyes wouldn't be moving back and forth as much while reading.
posted by numaner at 5:25 PM on September 27, 2017


Reflexive, automatic overusage of intensifiers literally makes them stop intensifying, and converts them into verbal tics that just clutter up your word-hole. Maybe that's literally behind some of the backlash.

But, like, that's almost never the reason that detractors cite, so, no, I think? But it is funny that the utterers of this type of grousing, given the onanistic subtext of that grousing that they care so much about the English language that they will get worked up into such a rich and creamy lather about the colloquial usage of "literally," are apparently so deprived of language comprehension skills that they interpret "literally" to mean "figuratively" in the contexts where it's used as an intensifier.
posted by invitapriore at 6:21 PM on September 27, 2017


But, like, that's almost never the reason that detractors cite, so, no, I think?

Agreed.
posted by thelonius at 6:54 PM on September 27, 2017


I have overused "actually" for so long that I find myself hard-pressed to define the word. It's not quite meaningless to me, but close. So it's both habitual and annoying, even to me.

That's, like, me with the word like. I, like, use it so much I might like have forgotten that it has its own, like, meaning and isn't like a placeholder that, like, is only nominally better than "uh".

Our illustrious and never-forgotten Wolof always grabbed the opportunity to tease me about it.
posted by fraula at 3:21 AM on September 28, 2017 [3 favorites]


This is not literally, actually, about language*. If you think it is, you missed the joke. No big deal, it happens to the best of us. But since Metafilter doesn't allow people to delete comments, now you're stuck with public evidence of your having missed the joke being on the internet forever. This is unfortunate, but continuing to argue your position doesn't really seem like the best way to handle it.

In an hour or so, Trump & Friends will have done something new and despicable, and everyone will forget that you missed the joke, as we all move on to the next outrage. So maybe rather than continuing to dig your hole deeper here while simultaneously deliberately hurting others, it might be best to just move on?

*I'm going to assume you see what I did there.
posted by MexicanYenta at 4:19 AM on September 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


If you complain about using literally as an intensifier, does that mean you never ever ever use these words apart from their traditional literal meanings?

Really
Actually
Seriously
Totally
Cool
Unbelievable
Amazing
Shocking
Awesome
Sick
Wild
Great
Fantastic
Horrible
Awful
Terrible
Terrifying
Fucking

I tell you, kids these days call things cool that are obviously at room temperature! They are destroying the world.
posted by medusa at 5:25 AM on September 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


now you're stuck with public evidence of your having missed the joke being on the internet forever.

oh noes! my permanent record!
posted by thelonius at 6:12 AM on September 28, 2017


while simultaneously deliberately hurting others

I can't read other Mefites' minds, of course, but I honestly don't think anyone has done this.
posted by Perodicticus potto at 7:01 AM on September 28, 2017


Not to, uh, derail this insult-a-thon, but here's the etymology of "wheelhouse."
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:19 AM on September 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


Skitt's Law at 3:04:

"Don't call if freedom"
posted by univac at 9:45 AM on September 28, 2017


It's hoi polloi who attempt to gain an ego boost attempting to show off their knowledge of etymology and insist the word has something to do some kind of "literal" meaning, when you and I know the word is about the vocabulary of the people living near bodies of water - "littorally" (or when wants to be intense, the teutonic "Künsten")
posted by otherchaz at 11:36 AM on September 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


I once heard Tilda Swinton being interviewed and the interviewer said something about how her acting in movie so-and-so was incredible, and she responded with something like "oh, lord, I would hope my acting is entirely credible."

I've never forgotten that exchange.
posted by hippybear at 6:43 PM on September 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


I think Ivey annoyed at "in my wheelhouse" because it has the odor of business language like "going forward," "spearheading," etc, where it serves to hide unoriginal ideas and lack of thought behind a showy facade. Reflexive cinecism
About that language is probably as bad as eager embrace, but it's where I am. As usual, the business world ruins everything it touches.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:06 AM on September 29, 2017


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