So earlier this week I wrote a treatise of sorts on how much I care about my students and how I think we all should if we want to teach.
Today, I’m going to illustrate my humanity by sharing my biggest pet peeve.
If you know me, you might be surprised to find that it isn’t one of these five things that do endlessly bother me:
- People who chew with their mouth open
- People who speak loudly on their phones while walking around the store
- People who wear New England Patriots gear just because the Patriots got good a decade and change ago
- People who say “all over” or “there’s a bunch of” when there is in reality one or two of a thing.
- People who don’t use their turn signals. What the hell?
Those bother me. So does my old “king of the peeves,” people who use “your” for “you’re.” But my newest one tops that on the annoyance meter. It’s something so hideous, so insidious, so vile… it just makes my blood boil.
It’s saying “probably” to hedge an answer you simply HAVE TO KNOW THE ANSWER to.
I see this all the time with young people lately, but I see it most often during the first few weeks of class when we do icebreakers to start class. I hear people say things like:
“My major is probably marketing.”
“I probably have a sister.”
“My favorite game is probably Dark Souls.”
“I probably went to high school in Cleveland.”
“My first pet was probably a dog.”
Dear world: NONE THOSE ARE USES FOR PROBABLY.
“Probably” means that it is probable that something happened or will happen. I am probably going to type the word “fuckwit” and delete it in composing of this post. The Golden State Warriors will probably win the NBA championship. We will probably end up going to war with Syria.
But you don’t “probably” have a major. Either you do or you don’t. And if you “probably” have a sibling, you’re telling me that it is only a fairly certain possibility that the other child you grew up with was born of your parents. If you went to school somewhere, you did. It wasn’t probable, it was actual. If you probably had a dog, that must have been strange animal. Come to think of it, Dobson is probably a dog. I take that one back. It’s probably possible to be confused on that.
And if you don’t know your own favorite things well enough to not turn it to probability, I feel for you.
I know we live in a society that hedges. I probably should accept that. I probably know that the President does that, and probably all of my students have friends that probably do that.
But when so few things can be certain, you should probably be as accurate as possible.