Reality is more about volume level than fact

Karen Stabiner, Tribune News Service

No, that won’t do. What I mean to say is, I actually, literally, appreciate you for reading this.

“Actually” — and verbal boosterism in general — is everywhere these days. I spotted it most recently in Apple’s new Safari ad campaign that ran during the Olympics, because an unadorned slogan — “A browser that’s private” — doesn’t sound as convincing as “A browser that’s actually private.”

We want that extra punch, as though there were a category of private beyond private, something in excess of definitive. We need a bigger guarantee, even though we know better.

“Literally” works much the same way. If I tell you that this is the best hamburger I have ever eaten, what more do I get for adding “literally” on top, like so many frizzled fried onions? Nothing. (I have no idea what a figuratively best burger might look or taste like, but of course, figurative burgers don’t exist.)

Try this for a day: every time you see or hear “actually” or “literally,” subtract it and recite the sentence again. Yes, indeed: it means exactly the same thing it did an adverb ago.

Which brings me to “I appreciate you.” A quick search suggests that it’s been common usage in the South for a while, but lately it’s washed up onto our Southern California shores. I can’t recall the last time I got a simple thanks for something I’d done, but multiple people appreciate me every day.

I’m not sure what it means. “I appreciate you” could be a more personal version of “I appreciate it,” or it could be a holistic appreciation of my very being, a lovely idea but probably not what the speaker intends, because whatever I just did wouldn’t warrant such an existential embrace.

Turns out my confusion is beside the point. As a nation, according to Georgetown University linguistics professor Deborah Tannen, we like new lingo more than we care about its exact meaning. “Using new terms or phrases feels kind of cool, up to date,” she said. “People want original ways to say things that have been said a million times.”

It makes sad sense that we might want to amp up language right now, might want to appreciate and be appreciated. We crave reassurance — and who wouldn’t when our local tectonic plates aren’t the only things that are shifting? Reality seems a function of volume level more than fact, and the more the headlines contradict each other, the less certain we are of the ground beneath our feet. We feel vulnerable, so we overcompensate with emphatic language. The illusion of substance is better than nothing at all.

How anxious are we? I know people who’ve been watching the news with the sound turned down, or who pace while they doomscroll, too nervous to hold still while they read the play-by-play.

Under the circumstances, we’ll take a good feeling anywhere we can get it. On a bad day, I’m prepared to believe you appreciate me even though you barely know me.

A doctor once explained to me what she called the blue convertible syndrome: Once you buy a blue convertible you notice them everywhere. She was talking about finding out that your medical diagnosis is a common one, which is comforting because you’re not alone. I’m now part of the blue-convertible language set, which means I’m bumping into actual, literal appreciation wherever I look.

If you want a historical footnote to back up my theory, I refer you to 1974, when Olivia Newton-John released “I Honestly Love You” in the midst of Watergate’s fallout, just four months before Richard Nixon resigned the presidency. The divorce courts may be full of dishonest love, but you get my point. Most of the time, love doesn’t need a modifier like that. But when life overwhelms us, then and now, we inflate our verbal swim floaties and talk our way up to the surface.