海角大神

My eight o鈥檆lock meeting had wrapped up early, leaving me with a gift of time.聽

I decided to start walking toward my 10 o鈥檆lock appointment, and when I saw that the most direct route was taking me right past an unfamiliar branch of a favorite cafe, I sensed that some higher power was steering me to a latte and a brioche au sucre.

And it proved to be an opportunity to hear 鈥測es, no, totally鈥� in the wild.

鈥淗ow鈥檚 that again?鈥� you may ask. Let me explain.

A few days before, I had seen a piece by New Yorker writer Kathryn Schulz called 鈥淲hat Part of 鈥楴o, Totally鈥� Don鈥檛 You Understand?鈥� Commenting on the human capacity for using things, and words, for other than their original purposes, she went on to observe, 鈥淸L]ately, we have gone in for a particularly dramatic appropriation. In certain situations, it seems, we have started using 鈥榥o鈥� to mean 鈥榶es.鈥� 鈥�

Her Exhibit A was a podcast clip of Lena Dunham, of 鈥淕irls鈥� fame, and comedian Marc Maron, in conversation about people who reflexively disparage modern art:

MARON: They can look at any painting and go, 鈥淓h.鈥� They can look at a Rothko and go, 鈥淗ey, three colors.鈥� And then you want to hit them.

DUNHAM: No, totally.

In case you missed it, 鈥淣o, totally鈥� was Ms. Dunham鈥檚 affirmation, her indication of agreement with Mr. Maron.

The construction may be favored by the young (Dunham is 28), but it鈥檚 not confined to them, Ms. Schulz notes:

鈥淚 first started noticing it when a fiftysomething acquaintance responded to a question I asked by saying, 鈥榊up! No, very definitely.鈥� That sent me looking for other examples, which turn out to be almost nonexistent in written English but increasingly abundant in speech.鈥�

In the age of text messaging and YouTube, the distinction between 鈥渨ritten English鈥� and 鈥渟peech鈥� isn鈥檛 what it used to be. But Schulz has clearly done some digging: 鈥淚n 2001, the journalist Bernard Kalb told the White House correspondent Dana Milbank that it was the job of reporters to thoroughly investigate political candidates, to which Milbank responded, 鈥極h, no, yes, I agree with you there.鈥� In 2012, Anderson Cooper, talking with the CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger, referred to Newt Gingrich as 鈥榯he guy who has come back from the dead multiple times.鈥� Borger鈥檚 reply veered toward Molly Bloom terrain: 鈥榊es, no, exactly, exactly, exactly.鈥� 鈥�

My initial response to the Schulz piece, though, was, 鈥淩eally? Do people actually say things like that?鈥�

But back to the cafe and my brioche: I was nibbling away as the bicycle messenger next to me at the counter dug into his serious protein nosh. Then suddenly he was in conversation with an unseen interlocutor: 鈥淵eah, no, totally: I can鈥檛 believe I forgot about that.鈥�

And now that you鈥檝e read this, you, too, will start hearing these odd mashups of 鈥測eah, no鈥� everywhere. Totally.