Opinion | Modern Language and the ‘Cult of the Casual’

Hop. It’s disarming. It’s almost a childish word. What is this business of people asking whether you want to, quote-unquote, hop on the phone? “Hop on a call.” “Hop on a quick call.” I’m John McWhorter, and I’m obsessed with sentences. But let’s face it, it can be harder to care about sentences on a day-to-day level. So let’s talk about some words. This use of “hop” —— “I don’t want to hop on a call” is of a piece with things you might not associate it with, such as: The waiter comes up and says: What were you thinking of having? As if the present is the past. It’s less intrusive to pretend that the past is now. “I’m going to head out ——” often with that slight, constricted tone in your voice, as if you’re going to gradually creep out, when really what you’re saying is: “I’m leaving.” “That’s it. I’m out of here.” But that’s not how you leave a party. Or somebody says: I’m going to go ahead and and charge that to your hotel bill, or I’m going to go ahead and sign you up for our deluxe package. It implies that you gave that go-ahead when you didn’t. And so it’s softer than just doing it. All of these implications, all of it is putting pillows between us. This is all about the American English cult of the casual. It started in the 1960s and then it became a societal trait of ours When you’re about to make a big point you cushion it with a “like” or “sort of” or “you know.” We avoid asserting our views too terribly directly. “You know.” “Like.” “Kind of.” “Sort of.” “Like.” “Like.” “You know.” “And sort of.” “You know.” “I’m like ——” “You know.” “You know.” “You know.” All of this softening, it’s kind of being polite with our words. “Hop on the phone” is the same thing as those things. So the next time someone asks you to hop on the phone, know that linguistically, they’re turning their heads and covering their nose and mouth when they sneeze. They’re being, like, polite and casual.