Filler Words: Part The First

I was once reading what I thought was an utterly awful novel. It was only when I got to page 14 and found the word "drugstore" that I realised that I wasn't reading stilted, rhythmless, English: I was reading very good American.

This, dear reader, is a problem. When you speak you have the advantage both of body and of accent. When you write you do not. Your words, which in your head were a ferocious rant or a bewitching drawl, on the page are lame, dull and denuded of voice.

This problem is also very easily solved. What you need are filler words. Every language has them.

I saw a good film last night.

I saw a jolly good film last night.

The first (although it might be informative and factual) is a dead sentence. The second tells you how to read it. It is as though the sentence came with an instruction booklet: the voice is British and posh. Moreover, having put that one word in the first sentence the reader will have got the idea and you may now continue ad infinitum and nauseam with your film review, safe and secure in the knowledge that your reader, whoever he, she or it happens to be, will be reading it in the voice that you intend.

Voice in literature is an infinitely complex and subtle business. Filler words cannot do the whole job, but they will do half of it and will do that work for No Effort Whatsoever on your part. If that American novel had simply used the word goddamned in the first sentence I would not have been tempted to throw it on the fire.

So, for your delight, instruction and edification here are some filler words, insertable almost anywhere, along with what I consider to be their implications:

[All English, unless otherwise stated. Most would go at the beginning of a sentence, especially those followed by a comma]

Jolly = Posh

Jolly well = Posher

I mean = Intense student

I believe = Slightly overintellectual and careful

Honestly, = Middle-aged female

Awfully = Posh

Achingly = Aesthete

Bleedin' = London

Believe me = Gossip

The thing is = Chronic debater

That's as maybe, but = Straight-talking common man

I think = Dull as ditchwater

I suspect = Clever

I imagine = Whimsical

I suppose = Amiable

I asseverate = Call the asylum

Let me tell you = No. I won't.

Indeed, = Academic

Indubitably, = Wooeeah

Utterly = Solidly built, middle-class male with obedient children

Hell, = American

Awesome = American

You know, = Probably American, but not the kind I like

Oh and = Female (for reasons I would find hard to explain)
Simply = Ditto. Aren't they simply lovely?

Therefore, necessarily, of course, obviously, you have to admit, so, it follows, logically = Male (because we love to delude ourselves by dressing in the clothes of logic)

Jesus mate, = Not an order to Our Lord that he should reproduce, but an Australianism

I would like to point out that = Prick

Frightfully = Posh

You know what? = ********in*

Anyway, = refreshing insofar as it does down everything you've just been saying. Infuriating for the same reason.

The interesting thing is = Then why didn't you cut the last bloody paragraph?

Intense(ly) = Passionate and (almost) intellectual

Rather = Chappish

Pretty = Middle-Class

Kind of = Hippy

, know what I mean? = Not necessarily

Now, dear reader, you may shudder at this requirement. You may feel that your voice is so godfuckdamned unique that no such filler word could ever do it justice. But remember that without them your voice may not be unique, it may simply be non-existent. Pick one. Go on.

Conversationally, I think. When writing Inky Fool I usually imagine. That's because someone I'm having a conversation with can tell by my demeanour that I'm a whimsical sort of fellow. A blog reader cannot, so I have to change my words. A voice can be infinitely modulated after you have set it up, but why not give your reader a clue as to what it is to be modulated from? Put a filler word in the first sentence. It is a courtesy. Then set to work on the fine tuning.

It's a jolly goddamned peach of a, like, idea.

Bonzer.

Of course these are just my own associations. Queries and contradictions in the comments, please. I think there will be further posts on exclamations and endearments, intensifiers and disapprobators. Suggestions welcome.

(This is also a far better way to denote accent than by just spelilng evrey wrogn.)

Hell, yeah.

P.S. Thanks to Moptop, who inspired this post, even if it horridly fails to answer her question.