Actually Absurd “Actually” (Or, An Open Letter To John Key)

Dear John Key. I’m not one to criticise too heavily over the silly pedantic stuff. However I just can’t handle this one any more.

You, John Key, as quoted on Stuff (HT DPF):

“You will see we’ve done quite a good job actually of closing down loopholes and making sure there is fairness in the system,” he said.

Would you please explain to me what the word “actually” adds to this sentence? No, wait. You are our Prime Minister. Lets not waste your time the day before budget day explaining that. Instead, just DON’T DO IT. It adds nothing. You never would have caught Rob Muldoon or David Lange peppering their speech with silly crutch words like this.

In case you think I’m being unfair, Mr Key, allow me to reprint some more of your quotes:

From just one interview with TVNZ’s Q+A:

I think that’d be an observation from them that it wasn’t working actually, and the reason being that if you go back to those numbers … As I said the corruption is actually endemic in the culture here … starting to see less people being killed both on the Afghan side and actually on the Coalition side … New Zealanders have been at the forefront actually of foiling a number of major plots there

An interview with Agenda before becoming PM:

The Overseas Investment Office made it quite clear actually that the deal should be approved … For two primary reasons actually … they’re actually about building assets … I think a lot has actually changed over the last 15 years … I just don’t think the motivation is actually there … he made actually some pretty good points … but actually there are other ways of achieving that … attrition within the state sector’s actually quite high … they actually do a lot of work … go in and actually look at the performance … it’s actually a correct statement that that is a way of addressing, that you’ve gotta remember actually … National hadn’t actually signed up … Cullen was actually totally wrong … actually what we do need to do

I can’t bring myself to do this any longer – it goes on for a very long time and the average paragraph features the word actually a couple of times.

Just think if other famous people had done this, Mr Key. Think of how mangled and horrible it would had been had you been speaking in place of other famous speakers.

What if Martin Luther Key Junior had said,

I actually have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that actually all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will actually be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, actually a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed actually into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will actually one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I actually have a dream today.

What if John ShaKeyspeare had written,

To be, or not actually to be–that is the question:

Whether ’tis actually nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or actually take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing actually end them. To die, to sleep–

No more–and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is actually heir to. ‘Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, actually to sleep–

To sleep–perchance to dream: ay, actually, there’s the rub,

Or to come a little closer to home, David LangKey,

Actually, the character of the argument, sir, is actually something which I find regrettable. So I can actually say very simply that it is actually my conviction that there is actually no moral case for nuclear weapons. That actually the best defence which can be made of their existence and the threat of their use is, as we have actually heard tonight, that they are actually a necessary evil; an abhorrent means to an actually desirable end.

As a side note, Lange says the word “actually” only once in that speech, according to that transcript.

I think I actually rest my case.