Language Log

My rehab roomie has an unusual habit when speaking.  He randomly inserts the syllable "way" in his phrases (seldom finishes a complete sentence) and often repeats it multiple times.  Some examples:

I way

I way way

My wife way

My son way

I want way way way to toilet way.

Bed way

A little over a year ago, as I was running through the little town of Wamsutter (pop. 203) in southwest Wyoming, I was stunned when the attendants and clerks at the three gas stations there uniformly greeted me with a hearty "Welcome in!"  

Last week, as I walked into a small store in the rural Dallas area, the shop assistant hailed me naturally with "welcome in!"  I couldn't help but catch my breath and momentarily halt my pace, because I hadn't heard that interjection a single time in the Philadelphia area.

I asked my son, who lives outside of Dallas, how prevalent this expression is.  He replied:

I would say it's fairly common.

Maybe 1 in 3 times one enters a restaurant or smaller store you hear that or a similar greeting

Do you speak Yukon English? These researchers want to hear it
'Linguists know very, very little about what's going on with Englishes in the Canadian North,' researcher says
CBC News · Posted: Aug 10, 2025

If you're not quite sure where Yukon is, it's way up there in northwest Canada, between British Columbia to the south, Alaska to the west, and Northwest Territories to the east.  It's cold, bitterly cold in winter, the coldest place in North America, with the abandoned town of Snag dropping down to −63.0 °C (−81.4 °F) in February, 1947.  Believe it or not, it gets extreme high heat in May and June, with the Mayo Road weather station, located just northwest of Whitehorse, recording a temperature of 36.5 °C (97.7 °F) in June, 2004.

As you might expect, the population of Yukon is sparse, with an estimated total of 47,126 as of 2025.  But now it gets interesting, at least to me.

Beginning in 2006, "meh" studies were a staple of Intellectual inquiry at Language Log.  For a virtuoso variorum, see Ben Zimmer's "Three scenes in the life of 'meh'" (2/26/12).  Herewith, relying on "d'oh", another (in)famous Simpsonsism, I will partially resurrect meh studies.

Frases Famosas de Los Simpson en Diferentes Doblajes

I was going very slowly down the stairwell of my house, especially slowly because I was carrying something bulky.  As a result, my left elbow was sticking outward, protruding  toward the wall.  When I was about halfway down, my elbow scraped against a pointed metal picture hanger, and it hurt like the dickens. 

As soon as the sharp metal object scraped against the skin on my elbow, I shouted "ow!", but then the momentum of my step carried me downward continuing to scrape against the picture hanger, and the "ow" became "owwwccchhhh!" 

Feast your eyes on a small segment of the total number of interjections in English:  Aha, Hurray, Oh, Ah, Aw, Ouch, Wow, Alas, Boo, Hey, Oh my God, Ahem, Bah, Cheers, Hmm, Huh, Huzzah, Oops, Yay, Agreement, Amen, Argh, Awesome, Boy….

Interjections may be exclamatory, quizzical, condemnatory, laudatory, and so forth and so on.  They may convey pain, delight, dismay; approbation, disapproval.

Some interjections are neutral:  uh, um.

Some are positive:  woo-hoo, bravo.

Some are negative:  duh, which is disdainful, demeaning, and even insulting.