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If this isn't the right forum for a topic like this please let me know. I looked for a Language and Culture forum but didn't find one, thanks.
It seems people are constantly putting "right now" at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of sentences or comments when it's completely unnecessary. This seems to be mostly spoken, not written, and mostly in broadcasting, ie. tv and radio.
Example:
-Our guest is Mrs. XYZ right now. (When introducing someone to a show.)
-Right now it's snowing.
-Call for a free sample right now.
Or sometimes this OTT:
-Right now we need to think about cleaning up our communities to help the environment right now because it's the right thing to do for all of us right now.
Yes, I've actually heard absurdity like that. Where did this come from? It's almost as maddening to listen to as starting every sentence with "So" or repeating "you guys" and "at the end of the day" like people were doing ad nauseam a few years ago.
What is this verbal tick? And why right now? It's a legit phrase for some occasions: Jane, come and clean your room right now! Said in the voice of God.
But most of the time it's an unnecessary add-on that adds nothing of significance to the sentence. Maybe it's a secret plot to drive me slowly into insanity.
Repeating "yeah" is something I've even found myself doing. I hear it everywhere.
Again, where did this come from? If someone asks "want fries with that?" why are we saying "yeah yeah yeah"?
Isn't one "yeah" sufficient to convey our acceptance or agreement? I just don't get it!
I love language especially the illogical oddities and strangeness of English in its various forms, British, US, International. Its relationship with French and the casual way English just adopts handy words from around the world. I'm also a grammar geek. Who in the world would love
grammar? Guilty.
Maybe I'm just extra sensitive to these phrases and vocal addictions that make the rounds and become fashionable.
But really how did "right now" and "yeah yeah yeah" even start? Who did that to us?
looks like it got moved to an appropriate new home. Welcome!
I haven't particularly noticed "right now", but I watch a lot of cooking shows, and get annoyed when the cook says, "Today, I have made for you..." Um, of course it was today! We watched you do it!
Also, "In my life..." or, worse, "In my lifetime..." followed (or preceded) by an old-fartish comment on how things are falling apart.
If this isn't the right forum for a topic like this please let me know. I looked for a Language and Culture forum but didn't find one, thanks.
It seems people are constantly putting "right now" at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of sentences or comments when it's completely unnecessary. This seems to be mostly spoken, not written, and mostly in broadcasting, ie. tv and radio.
Example:
-Our guest is Mrs. XYZ right now. (When introducing someone to a show.)
-Right now it's snowing.
-Call for a free sample right now.
OP, your first example above is definitely silly, but I can understand the second, especially if I modify it a little: "Right now it's snowing, but it's expected to stop soon." Of course you still don't NEED the "right now," but it seems to me to be emphasizing what's happening NOW.
As for "Call for a free sample right now" -- well, of course they add the RIGHT NOW to spur you into action! Not that it ever works on me.
As for the "yeah, yeah, yeah," the only time I have ever done that or heard that is when someone is speaking too slowly and you're trying to hurry them up, as in, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but what's your point?" It's a tiny bit rude but I have heard it in that sense. Not in any other sense, though -- certainly not just answering a simple question like "Do you want fries with that?" So I find that one puzzling. I suspect, as others have mentioned, it's regional.
I was thinking "right now" was mostly verbal but today there was a video with captions that ended the sentence with "rn"--right now. So there's even shorthand initials for it!
I'm mainly wondering why the two words "right now"? Why not "currently" "at the moment" or just plain "now"?
Poking around online I found some comments that people in UK are starting to use "right now" in every sentence and it's known as an Americanism. Starting to annoy people too.
The Beatles reference above is funny, as I was writing the OP I started singing "she loves you yeah yeah yeah." But a song from 1964 isn't behind this, for one thing it's not sung it's said quickly. Like "but of course" or reassurance something has happened or was completed.
"Did you remember to pick up a bottle of wine?"
"Yeah yeah yeah."
The reference to Hawaii is interesting.
Maybe a surfer dude thing?
That is interesting about Hawaii. When I was there, I noticed locals using "yeah" in a way I wasn't used to.
Where we might say: "You want to go to the store, right?" (affirmation) in Hawaii they'd say:
"You want to go to the store, yeah?" that was a new use for "yeah". However, my visit was almost 10 years ago, and recently I've heard it used that way on the mainland and elsewhere.
The "yeah, yeah, yeah" thing is rather rude and dismissive.
The "right now" thing I haven't noticed, but no surprise with everyone's diminishing attention span.
It reminds me of asking my husband to do some little thing and inevitably he'll say, "Right now?"
To which I reply: "No, next week." After years of this, he switched to "Can I just finish this article?" that brings a laugh every time.....
When those on television use phrases like "right now" it is just part of the hyperbole. Sometimes it is used for emphasis, sometimes it is simply a stretching of time to fill the time slot. News programs are most guilty of such over-the-top earnest panic. If you listen closely, you'll get even more irritated. "Breaking news, just into the newsroom!" First, you don't have a newsroom. You are in a studio. You have an office. If it is "breaking news" then "just in" is redundant. In reality, the "breaking news" is OFTEN hours old and has been reported elsewhere, making the newsreader sound ill-informed or subject to panic attacks.
It does bring back memories of Ed Sullivan though... "Right here, right here on our stage..."
I've not run across "yeah, yeah, yeah" in years other than in cartoon caricature presentations of angsty teens. Then again, the south is rather intolerant of dismissive teens.
I've not heart people interject "right now" into conversation, nor "yeah yeah yeah." So perhaps it's a regional thing, as another poster suggested, or maybe a generational thing. (I'm an old fart in my 60s.)
OP, you also mentioned that it annoys you when people start a sentence with the word "so." That is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to language. Here in C-D Land, some opening thread posts begin with the word "so." Annoying!
And get this: as I was writing the above paragraph, I was watching Shark Tank on TV. The featured entrepreneur started his presentation with the word "so." Ugh! It is quite common now for even highly educated, articulate people to start narratives with "so," and it drives me right up the wall.
.
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Who in the world would love 
