Alternative for Anyways

Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Margarita. I’m from the Dallas area.

Hi, Margarita. How are you doing? Great. I have a word that I use. Actually, I have two words I use interchangeably, anyhow and anyways. And I have been seeing someone.

And recently, apparently I’ve been using the term more frequently, and I think it’s because I’m more comfortable with him, so I’m speaking more, using terms that are more natural for me.

But he’s been a wonderful person, a gentleman, and the only critical thing probably has been that he has said, I don’t like it when you use the word anyhow or anyways. It makes you sound uneducated and uncultured, and he’s helping me on that.

But I want to know why I use the word, and I use it as a conclusion to I will have shared something really deep and profound, and then I’ll get frustrated with all my thoughts crashing, and I’ll say, anyways.

Right.

Or I’ll say, anyhow.

Gotcha.

And I do know how to use the words correctly, but for some reason I use them as a conclusion.

Like, I want to stop talking about what I’m talking about and move on to something new.

And it annoys him.

So problem number two is, is there a different word I can use?

Let’s ask a couple questions about your relationship first.

How annoyed is this guy?

I mean, does he get red-faced?

Does he get sweaty about it?

No, no, no, no, no.

But he comments on it.

And actually, I want to improve my speech.

Okay, good.

That’s a good goal for all of us.

Even Martha and I do that work on our own language, too, believe it or not.

We work on speaking better.

A lot of people use anyhow and anyways, anyways with the S as a filler.

Now, they’re informal.

They’re nonstandard.

Anyways in particular annoys a lot of people.

But they actually do a job.

It’s kind of a functional job.

They’re in the language as what are called discourse markers.

They represent a transition out of a subject or into a subject.

That is literally what you’re doing.

You’re explaining something.

You are winding it up.

Maybe you don’t have a really firm conclusion.

And then you go, anyway, and you kind of just suggest, I’m finished now.

Let’s wrap that thought up.

And there it is in a bundle if you want to respond to it.

And it’s doing a job.

You know, it’s not formal English, but it’s doing some work.

It’s like a transition.

Yeah, it’s a transition.

Now, in formal language, you would never write that, though.

I’m assuming, Margarita, that when you write, you would write at length and you would edit your thoughts in such a way that…

And have a period at the end of my statement.

Yeah.

A firm conclusion, a solid wrap-up.

Formal transition.

But when we’re speaking aloud, it’s really hard to do that.

So my suggestion, Margarita, would be to try to transform that into a question.

What do you think?

Oh, does that get on?

I like that.

Does that make sense?

Or even just the simple, you can try, do you know what I mean?

But you’ve got to be careful with that one because that one can also become, you know what I mean?

You know what I mean?

You’ve got to be a real crutch.

But find maybe six or seven really brief small questions that formally throw the question back to the listener or the conversation participant, throws it out into their lap so that they know the conversation is theirs.

I love it.

That is awesome.

That’s good.

And I want to hear back from you about, first of all, how this relationship goes.

And second, how this goes.

If you’re able to get to the place where you’re comfortable with having dropped most of those any hows and any ways.

Thank you.

Yeah, sure.

I love the accountability.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

You know the thing, Margarita, though?

We are so appreciative of people who are trying to improve their writing and their speaking.

Because this is how we all become better communicators.

It’s a really fundamental thing that’s easy to do, but some people just never take the chance or even take the risk of being wrong about it or not being able to pull it off very easily.

And you’re doing that.

So, yay for you.

Well, thanks a lot for calling.

Take care now, right?

Good luck.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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