Actually unique to Boston?

November 11, 2007 11:56 AM

My Professor this week brought up that she thinks the use of the word "actually" is unique to Boston.

Phases like "Actually, I am going to put a coat on". Or when asked what time it is we will respond "Actually, I do know what time it is." As someone who hasn't spent a huge chunk of time outside of Boston I have no way of knowing if this is true. Actually, I just flat out want to disagree with her. Isn't the use of the word universal?

posted by pwally to Society & Culture (46 answers total)

Actually, yes.
posted by greta simone at 11:57 AM on November 11, 2007

Your Professor is probably wrong. Actually, I'm positive she's wrong.
posted by dobbs at 11:57 AM on November 11, 2007

I grew up in California, and that usage looks perfectly normal to me.

Maybe it's just used a whole lot more often in Boston?
posted by Ms. Saint at 12:00 PM on November 11, 2007

Are you sure she meant "unique"? As in the word doesn't exist outside of Boston? As in, it's in the dictionary as a favor to Boston? Perhaps she just meant that it is a noticable speech pattern in the city? Like, I would say that in New York, people tend to say "wait on line" as opposed to "wait in line", but I wouldn't claim that the word "in" is unique to New York.
posted by Bookhouse at 12:03 PM on November 11, 2007

That's a wicked stupid thing to say about Bostonian slang (or the use of Actually, I suppose)
posted by shownomercy at 12:03 PM on November 11, 2007

I picked up my complete overuse of the word while in college in Boston. Maybe it's just that college somehow encourages its use, meaning that the students your professor sees did not use it previous to college, picked it up in college, and she's confusing chronology with geography?
posted by occhiblu at 12:04 PM on November 11, 2007

Oh my god, this is a total pet-peeve of mine! And what's worse, I find myself doing it too! Definitely not unique to Boston. I can vouch for California and Ohio.
posted by picklebird at 12:06 PM on November 11, 2007

Did she mean using the word "actually" as a figure of speech? If so, it's quite possible that you hear it a lot more in a certain area, but I doubt that Boston is the only place in the world that you'll hear that particular speech pattern.

For example, some people I know who come from a town nearby say "and I turned round to him and said..." or "she turned round to me and said..." an awful lot in their conversation. But I also hear people on TV say it sometimes, who don't come from this town.
posted by Solomon at 12:12 PM on November 11, 2007

What a strange thing for your professor to say. None of the examples you mention seem odd to me as a Floridian.

The second sentence seems like a response to the question 'Do you know what time it is?'. People don't generally respond to that as a direct question about their knowledge though that is the literal meaning of the question. Rather, people respond by simply giving the time. Though more uncommon than not, a person can respond to the direct question. Your professor may notice a tendency for Bostonians to respond to the literal meaning of questions like that. I have no idea whether or not that is true. I'm just trying to get at what in the world may have motivated her to make what seems on the surface to be a very ridiculous claim.
posted by inconsequentialist at 12:12 PM on November 11, 2007

All of those sound perfectly normal to this west coaster (Oregon & N. California). In fact, I've been plenty guilty of that usage.
posted by devilsbrigade at 12:15 PM on November 11, 2007

Actually, I've used that word that way myself, and I've never actually left Australia.
posted by b33j at 12:18 PM on November 11, 2007

Never been to Boston, don't have any friends from Boston, have heard and used "actually" like that throughout the Midwest and in Chicago frequently. No idea how to "disprove" your professor, though I doubt she has any more "proof" of her theory than you now do.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:19 PM on November 11, 2007

A character in Angela Thirkell's novels, which were published in Britain in the 30s-40s-50s, begins virtually every sentence with "Ackcherly."
posted by JanetLand at 12:35 PM on November 11, 2007

Actually, I've never been to Boston, but I'm quite sure your professor is wrong.
posted by Tuwa at 12:39 PM on November 11, 2007

when asked what time it is we will respond "Actually, I do know what time it is."

Are we to take it that this isn't followed by the actual time? I would find this to be an unusual response to "What time is it?", less unusual to "Do you know what time it is?"

"Actually, I am going to put a coat on"
A perfectly cromulent phrase. And I've never been to Boston.
posted by yohko at 12:44 PM on November 11, 2007

Virtually, this usage seems to be quite widespread.
posted by Aquaman at 12:51 PM on November 11, 2007

I find myself saying stuff like that all the time, and am from Nova Scotia, Canada.
posted by joannemerriam at 12:58 PM on November 11, 2007

All of those example uses seem perfectly typical to my midwestern upbringing.

As for the time question, I'll just guess that the full version was this:

Q: Do you know what time it is?
A: Actually, yes, I do know what time it is.

It is a pretentious way to speak, so perhaps folks in Boston... well, your professor can probably opine on that.
posted by rokusan at 1:03 PM on November 11, 2007

Response by poster: ...woah didn't mean to piss you off naberius, go take a cold shower or something we're discussing word usage. I guess it is settled, I knew something was a bit off. And for the record my professor is not a crackhead or a tool she just maybe has had a different experience. Wouldn't have asked the question if I knew people would be attacking the intelligence of my professor, maybe I'm too naive.
posted by pwally at 1:06 PM on November 11, 2007

I overuse "actually" to an appalling degree, and I've spent a grand total of about a week in Boston. But I'm wondering if there's some specific use of the word "actually" that she's talking about. If someone asked me the time, I wouldn't say "actually it's 3:08," unless they'd indicated that they thought it was some other time. If someone said "I think it's about 2:30," then I might say "actually, it's 3:08." Is she referring to people using the word "actually" when they're not indicating a contradiction or contrast? Because that actually might be specific to Boston.
posted by craichead at 1:10 PM on November 11, 2007

I'd say you almost certainly misunderstood your professor, who was probably talking about a particular usage of the word 'actually.' (Though I can't tell what it might be.) The only way to find out: ask.
posted by koeselitz at 1:15 PM on November 11, 2007

Response by poster: Well I gave the examples that she gave me so that pretty much rules out any misunderstanding.
posted by pwally at 1:20 PM on November 11, 2007

I use the word "Actually" far too often, in all of the ways you have described. And I'm from Boston. I have no clue whether this is a regional thing or not, but I drive myself nuts with it.
posted by nursegracer at 1:23 PM on November 11, 2007

I would tend to use the word "Actually" to indicate that the next bit is somewhat surprising.

So to me, "Actually, I do know the time" seems a little weird--not very surprising that someone knows the time. On the other hand, "Actually, this watch is broken" is perfectly cromulent sounding.
posted by IvyMike at 1:28 PM on November 11, 2007

Sounds normal to a South Carolinian, if that helps.
posted by farishta at 1:32 PM on November 11, 2007

Response by poster: IvyMike the interaction would sound like:

Do you have the time?

Actually, I do have the time (fumbles for watch or cell phone) it is half past noon.
posted by pwally at 1:36 PM on November 11, 2007

The coat example isn't useful, though, pwally, because I'd need the context to know whether it sounded weird. This sounds normal:

Me: I'm cold.
Other person: Are you going to turn the heat up?
Me: Actually, I'm going to put a coat on.

This sounds weird:

Other person: What are you going to do now?
Me: Actually, I'm going to put a coat on.

Do you know whether your prof was talking about the former usage or the latter? And would the latter usage be normal in Boston?
posted by craichead at 1:37 PM on November 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: More like:
What are you going to do now?

Actually, I'm going to take off.

Is that still weird? Sorry to abandon the coat altogether.
posted by pwally at 1:39 PM on November 11, 2007

As a New Yorker/Californian (I think my usage started in CA), I overuse "actually" to the point of having to go through every email I write and delete multiple instances of it.

However, I agree with craichead that your professor is talking about a specific usage: your examples use "actually" in a way that feels semantically incorrect (or superfluous? I'm not sure) to me, whereas even though I use it a lot, it's always a technically correct usage. (I think; I haven't actually looked it up, or anything.)

Um, and the above parenthetical sentence illustrates my point: I use "actually" to correct a(n implied or explicit) wrong impression -- like, there, I implied that I knew what I was talking about, when in fact I have no proof to back up my assertion.

Using "Actually" to begin every sentence may well be a regionalism, and I've never heard it and equally never spent much time in Boston, so your professor may equally be right, or right-ish.
posted by obliquicity at 2:00 PM on November 11, 2007

My perspective maybe isn't terribly helpful (I'm a student in Boston, coming from not-so-distant New Hampshire), but...

Is that still weird? Sorry to abandon the coat altogether.

It's "weird" in there's no reason to say "actually" in many of the cases it's used in. It's definitely a common saying, though. (Kind of like, "I'm not going to lie," which is used in similarly pointless circumstances: "I'm not going to lie, this blanket is comfortable.")

I've heard it a lot, but the fact that I heard it in New Hampshire doesn't exactly disprove that it's a regional thing. I think others did a better job of that.

Good for you for defending your professor's intelligence!
posted by fogster at 2:18 PM on November 11, 2007

If it's not used to express some level of disagreement or change of direction, then it seems odd to me (midwestern)

or what craichead said
posted by jpdoane at 2:22 PM on November 11, 2007

'Where have you been?' asked Mrs. Grimble, her head inside the refrigerator. 'Out,' said Grimble, and realizing that this was not a very complete reply added, 'actually feeding under-privileged people.' His father had told him once that when people began a sentence with 'actually', it was nearly always a lie. His mother, who had not been listening, said, 'Here is your breakfast. Come home straight from school, because we are going shopping.' 'Shopping,' said Grimble; 'Christmas shopping and there are still six shopping days to go ...' ' Well,' said his mother,' actually mostly going to the launderette and things.'

(From 'Grimble at Christmas', by Clement Freud, published in the UK in 1974)
posted by Hogshead at 2:26 PM on November 11, 2007

More like:
What are you going to do now?

Actually, I'm going to take off.

Is that still weird? Sorry to abandon the coat altogether.


Its fine if the word is added to highlight an unexpected answer. ie. If the first person expected you to stay

If its just a throwaway word that doesn't affect the meaning at all, then that is actually a weird usage
posted by jpdoane at 2:27 PM on November 11, 2007

Wouldn't have asked the question if I knew people would be attacking the intelligence of my professor, maybe I'm too naive.

Actually, there are several distinct possibilities:

a) You are accurately describing both what your professor said, and what she meant, in which case, she is a bonehead.

b) You are accurately describing what your professor said (unique to Boston), but not what she meant (a very specific kind of usage is unique to Boston), in which case, she is wrong, but not a bonehead, and you sadly literal-minded, but not necessarily a bonehead.

c) You are not accurately describing what she said, or what she meant. (She didn't use the word "unique," or if she did, she didn't use it in the way your'e describing.) In which case, she is not a bonehead, but you are.
posted by bingo at 2:33 PM on November 11, 2007

More like:
What are you going to do now?

Actually, I'm going to take off.

Is that still weird? Sorry to abandon the coat altogether.

Yeah, I think it's a little weird. It's probably not weird enough that I'd notice, but I don't think I'd use actually like that. As other people have said, I use "actually" to indicate that something is a little unexpected. So your prof may be right, but if so, it's a really subtle point!
posted by craichead at 2:57 PM on November 11, 2007

So IAAL and I've thought about this (for reasons that will become clear), but I've never seen any studies of it. The baseline meaning of "actually" can probably be paraphrased as "the preceding thing isn't quite right, but what is really true is that...". (The real story is of course much more complicated and nuanced than this.) In some areas of New England, "actually" seems to have gained an additional use as a discourse marker with a meaning much more bleached than that. It's very hard to figure the meaning out precisely but it might be something is simple as what linguists sometimes call a "topic shift", when the discourse topic changes, or indicating that the next sentence conveys some information counter to some prior expectations. Meanings of this kind of particle are notoriously hard to pin down, so I'm not really sure (despite consciously paying attention to many examples), but the basic point is that its meaning is something that you would use constantly (if you had this dialect feature), leading to the perception by others that "actually" is overused. I think that the examples in the original post don't demonstrate the bleached use, or at least they don't have to -- in some contexts maybe, but they have perfectly good meanings with the more specific use as well. People who have this dialect feature do know the more specific meaning of "actually", though they may not be aware when they are using the bleached version. (It is roughly as natural to them as using "um", for example.)

This isn't limited to Boston. I haven't done any formal fieldwork, but I feel like I have sufficient grounds to say this, for the following reasons. (i) I've heard this all over New England. (ii) my girlfriend is from Connecticut and has this dialect feature. (iii) Also, I'm from the Boston area and don't have it, though I've heard it in the area I grew up in. The second reason, of course, being my real source of hard data on this phenomenon.
posted by advil at 3:23 PM on November 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Also, I should have made clear that I have no evidence that this dialect feature doesn't extend outside New England, though I haven't really heard it in CA.
posted by advil at 3:24 PM on November 11, 2007

Mod note: actually, I am from boston and if you're not actually answering the actual question you are actually going to have to take it to actual metatalk, please, actually.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:36 PM on November 11, 2007

By the way, is it possible that your professor thinks that the use of the bleached "actually" originated in Boston, not that it is currently limited to Boston? This may well be true and someone who is actually working on the topic would have done fieldwork that would allow them to determine this.
posted by advil at 4:49 PM on November 11, 2007

Not particular to Boston.

(The rabid overuse of "literally" to provide unneeded justification to fairly mundane details within a spoken narrative is not unique to Boston either. Actually, it is *literally* just as annoying, though.)
posted by desuetude at 4:50 PM on November 11, 2007

Actually, people often talk this way in the United Kingdom, not just the USA.
posted by buxtonbluecat at 4:57 PM on November 11, 2007

To throw in on the anecdotes: I am from California (though my family came via Mass), and I do this to the extent that my boyfriend mocks me mercilessly for it. It isn't for contrasting information so much as a topic shift, and in my case it is often the remanant of an internal topic shift, so I will begin a sentence with it when there is no other evidence of this shift. Yay idioms.
posted by dame at 5:18 PM on November 11, 2007

I observe an annoying written use of "actually" daily on the internets, from users whom I perceive to come from all over the English speaking world. Most frequently I find this in brief blog comments like "This is actually cool," which are not a response to a previous assertion of uncoolness. I tend to infer, when reading this, that the author is so jaded that s/he expects everything to suck; consequently, any deviation is a surprise meriting an "actually." I don't think that's actually their intent, though.

In the example above I assume it's meant as an intensifier. It bugs me, but I suspect my lawn will be overrun for the foreseeable future, so I'll try to learn to live with it.
posted by mumkin at 5:36 PM on November 11, 2007

I don't think this is unique to Boston. Actually, I don't think its use (or overuse) could even be said to be regional. Not that I've been to Boston or every 'region'.. I think I use 'actually' fairly frequently, and I have British friends who use the word as liberally, if I'm recalling correctly. Nobody's ever pointed out my overuse as unusual, so I never really thought about it! There are certain idiomatic expressions that are quite notable, but I wouldn't think this is one of them!
posted by Mael Oui at 8:03 PM on November 11, 2007

I think your professor is full of beans. "Actually" as in "As a matter of fact..." is pretty standard English. As a matter of fact, I'd say that Brits can confirm this best since, actually, "actually" comes from there originally.
posted by zardoz at 10:38 PM on November 11, 2007

My ten-year-old son must be from Boston, then, because he went through a phase where he prefaced nearly everything he said with "actually." We live in the midwest.

Actually, it was quite annoying.
posted by cooker girl at 7:01 AM on November 12, 2007