"Keep me in touch" -- who says that?

March 30, 2021 11:51 AM

I noticed on The Good Wife that many characters would say "Keep me in touch" which always sounded a little strange to me. I would have expected "Keep me in the loop" or "Keep in touch" (more likely "Stay in touch") but idk, is "Keep me in touch" a thing?

Maybe it's a Chicago thing (where the show was set)?

posted by mpark to Writing & Language (15 answers total)

Spent the first 25 years of my life in the Chicago suburbs and/or working/attending college in the city proper; I have never heard this term before and am confident that no one in Chicago says "Keep me in touch."
posted by jabes at 12:18 PM on March 30, 2021 [3 favorites]

All I can find is this hymn: Keep Me In Touch With Thee, O Lord.
posted by Rash at 12:30 PM on March 30, 2021

my wife and i say, pretty regularly, "keep me in text" when one of us heads out and about. pretty sure it evolved from "keep me in touch" and ill be the first to agree that both constructions sound kind of awkward. . .
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 1:14 PM on March 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'm from the nyc/NJ area and I feel like "keep me in touch" is something I have said, or at the very least doesn't sound weird to me.. "Keep me in the loop" is something I'd say jokingly, and "keep in touch"/"stay in touch" has a different meaning - more like ongoing personal communication rather than updates about an ongoing situation.
posted by ToddBurson at 1:25 PM on March 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Grew up in the Chicago suburbs and have stayed living fairly close around the Midwest since. "Keep me in touch" is definitely weird to me, and not a Chicago thing afaik. "Keep in touch" and "keep me in the loop" would both feel normal to me.
posted by augustimagination at 1:41 PM on March 30, 2021

There's been other instances of idiosyncratic dialogue on that show. For a time all the characters were using the phrase 'phone me' instead of the more typically American 'call me'.
posted by ezust at 4:05 PM on March 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

I have lived 45 of my 50 years in the city of Chicago. At the most, "keep me in touch" sounds like a minor flub someone would make when speaking quickly. I have never heard this said intentionally. It sounds wrong to me.
posted by SoberHighland at 5:06 PM on March 30, 2021

Yep, lived in the upper Midwest basically always and Chicago for 13+ years, I have never ever heard this.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 5:23 PM on March 30, 2021

There's been other instances of idiosyncratic dialogue on that show. For a time all the characters were using the phrase 'phone me' instead of the more typically American 'call me'.

I noticed that The Good Wife characters say, "Here's the thing," a lot, usually as a preface to some gotcha-type explanation.
posted by orange swan at 5:29 PM on March 30, 2021

"Here's the thing" is a real NYC expression that I have been using for the past 50+ years -- when making a point or explaining something. No joke.
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 8:31 PM on March 30, 2021 [3 favorites]

Here's the Thing podcast. Google yields many other examples.
posted by JimN2TAW at 8:52 PM on March 30, 2021

Response by poster: Thanks all. My takeaway is that it's not a Chicago thing, it's not a common thing, but it is a thing.

I didn't even think to google "keep me in touch" because it seemed so wrong, but I just did a search and here's a Londoner vouching for "keep you in touch": https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/keep-you-in-touch-keep-in-touch-with-you.1194216/#post-6128940
posted by mpark at 10:02 PM on March 30, 2021

I grew up in the upper-upper-Midwest and this does sound familiar. I wouldn’t say it, but I feel I heard it around.
posted by stoneandstar at 11:41 PM on March 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

For what it's worth, I'm a Brit who has lived in London and "keep me in touch" sounds just as strange to me as it does to everyone else on this thread.
posted by altolinguistic at 5:39 AM on March 31, 2021

Usually it's more revealing to look at the head writers than the ostensible setting of the show. However, it looks like the showrunners/lead writers are both from California (I didn't bother digging deeper into the writing staff). So that doesn't explain the weirdness of "keep me in touch," which isn't familiar to me at all as a Californian.

I'm so fascinated though that "here's the thing" may not be universal?! I hear and use that phrase all the time and it never occurred to me it might not be standard.
posted by desert outpost at 1:13 PM on March 31, 2021