Is it just me? At first I was worried that I had picked up a quirky habit when I caught myself prefacing most statements last week with the phrase, “I mean.” Since then, though, I’ve noticed lots of people saying it. Even an interviewee on the local NPR show this morning saw fit to begin his answer by assuring listeners that it was indeed he who was expressing the views and that he did indeed mean them. I suppose the phrase is just one of those phatic tags designed to create a pause or simply indicate that something relevant is about to be said. I guess these phrases keep the conversational wheels humming. I wonder, though, what it means when they seep into the mediated now by virtue of moving from an individual’s quirk to a common cultural styling. I mean it’s like every other sentence now begins with “I mean.”

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