Way more ways
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Patricia Cohen and Ron Lieber, "It's summer, but Where Are the Teen Workers?", NYT 7/3/2015:
Ice cream still needs scooping, beaches still need guarding and campers still need counseling. But now, there are way fewer teenagers doing it all this summer.
This passage surprised me — but not because of the content, which seems consistent with my own experience. What surprised me was the fact that a relatively formal piece of writing used way as a scalar intensifier, a construction that I associate with informal or conversational registers.
I shouldn't have been surprised, since a quick search shows that the NYT has printed "way fewer" (outside of quotations) several times before:
Geoff MacDonald, "For Djokovic and Nadal, It's a Chess Match", 6/9/2012: Nadal hits way fewer forehand winners when pulled wide than when he gets to run around his backhand and use his favorite winner, the inside-out forehand.
Robert Wright, "Is Julian Assange Helping the Neocons?", 12/7/2010: This would mean killing fewer terrorists in the short run, but it would probably mean creating way fewer of them in the long run.
And similarly with "way more":
Seth Kugel, "A $50 Day in Knoxville, Tennessee", 7/2/2015: In front of a crowd of about 40, the first act was a guitarist named Ross Adams, who played country-ish ballads; the rocking Blackfoot Gypsies, who had way more energy than the crowd, followed.
And also "way bigger" and "way larger":
Mark Oppenheimer, "Examining the Growth of the 'Spiritual but Not Religious'", 7/18/2014: It was 7 percent of all Americans, a bigger group than atheists, and way bigger than Jews, Muslims or Episcopalians.
Zachary Wolfe, "Melodramatic Sounds of Young Love", 5/25/2011: Dispensing with the typical operatic kings and gods, they featured recognizably ordinary characters experiencing way-larger-than-life emotions.
The OED connects this intensifier way to away in the sense "At or to a (great) distance, far". The literal version can be found with prepositions
1849 W. S. Mayo Kaloolah v. 44 You see it was way towards Tupper's Lake.
1888 E. Custer Tenting on Plains (1893) viii. 151 He sat 'way under the mantel, to let the tobacco-smoke go up the chimney.
1891 Anthony's Photogr. Bull. 4 29, I would have sold at a very low price, way below cost.
as well as with adverbs:
1850 L. H. Garrard Wah-to-Yah xvii. 222 Calyforny! way over yonder!
1851 E. S. Wortley Trav. in U.S. I. xxiii. 262 The trading and wealthy cities of far off Alabama and Louisiana, ‘way down south’.
1854 Seba Smith (title) Way down East.
1866 Atlantic Monthly May 640 Nor these ain't metters thet with pol'tics swings, But goes 'way down amongst the roots o' things.
You can see from these examples that the usage is U.S.-associated and generally conversational or informal.
The literal spatial meaning leads to a figurative extension glossed as "much, far", which is not attested until the mid-20th century, according to the OED's citations.
1941 L. I. Wilder Little Town on Prairie v. 34 ‘I wonder how much it costs,’ said Ma. ‘'Way too much for ordinary folks,’ said Pa.
1957 New Yorker 2 Nov. 105/2 Go by plane, train or ship. Arrive way sooner—relaxed!
1977 Rolling Stone 24 Mar. He was a country & western singer and he drank way too much.
Though I felt sure that it existed earlier, I was surprised not to find any examples in Mark Twain's writings, at least via the obvious searches. I was able to antedate the 1941 citation with a few Google Books results, e.g. this passage from the transcripts of Senate hearings published in 1920 (and please ignore the fact that Google Books thinks this work forms part of The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy …):
But the testimony from the Google Books ngram viewer agrees with the OED that the general scalar-intensifier extension of way didn't start getting printed (much) until the middle of the 20th century, and didn't really take off in print until 1980 or so:
 |
 |
Given this trajectory, it's odd that there's been no anti-way revulsion by usage mavens — or have I missed it?
Update — I did miss at least one reaction, as Don points out in the comments. Paul Brians notes that
Young people frequently use phrases like “way better” to mean “far better” or “very much better.” In formal writing, it would be gauche to say that Impressionism is “way more popular” than Cubism instead of “much more popular.”
In fact I agree with Prof. Brians' reaction — this post started with my surprise at seeing "way fewer" in a New York Times article. However, the NYT usage is one of many pieces of evidence that the "young people" are winning this one, as they usually do.
ThomasH said,
July 5, 2015 @ 12:22 pm
But "way more" by itself, although much higher in 2008 than 1998, is still less frequent in N-Gram than the 1840's. (To my ear, it still sounds like something I'd hear my grandfather say.) Does this antiquarian air protect it from the anti-"way" mavens?
[(myl) Don't blindly trust mere word-sequence statistics, which in this case (as often) are quite misleading. Instances of "way more" from the 1840s are all things like:
It contains more odd places, I believe, more odd people, and every way more material for uncommon amusement, than any other city in the universe.
… then certainly it will not be hard to determine, that the way of protestants must be more secure, and the Roman way more dangerous.
… a purer mode of adoration ; when the contrite heart was to supersede the costly sacrifice, and God should be worshipped in a way more suited to his spiritual nature.
Is not always the straight way more short than the oblique and crooked ? Is not the plain way more easy than the rough and cragged ? Is not the fair way more pleasant and passable than the foul ?
None of these are instances of the construction under discussion. Nor are any of the other examples from that time period, at least among the 200 or so that I've checked.]
Chris Waters said,
July 5, 2015 @ 1:20 pm
You're assuming there's some sort of logic behind the peevings of the grammar mavens. :)
[(myl) Logic, no, but it's often the case that a change in usage is followed by a peevological reaction, as in the case of urge as a noun ("In this day of slack style…", 9/2/1012).]
My guess would be that this hasn't been disproportionately used by disfavored groups (teenagers or middle management). If anything, I think it has a bit of a "wild west" flavor to it.
[(myl) Association with disfavored groups is certainly a strong factor; but it's not always necessary, as in the urge case.]
I think I have seen some mild peeving, though, about the even more extreme (and also western US, I believe, though I haven't seen any formal studies) use of "way" by itself as an affirmative response to a question, which does have some association with teenagers.
"She's really beautiful, isn't she?"
"Way!"
With usages like this to complain about, it's possible that the much milder "way more" is simply able to slip under the radar.
Levantine said,
July 5, 2015 @ 3:57 pm
What surprised me was the jarring nature of the phrase itself. To me, "way less" is the idiomatic way of using this sort of construction, the "natural" counterpart to "way more". But "way fewer" strikes me as a misguided attempt to standardise a colloquialism.
Robert said,
July 5, 2015 @ 4:25 pm
I believe the affirmative "Way" originated as a response to the phrase "No way". At least it is used that way in the film "Wayne's World". If so, it is not related to the use of way as an intensifier.
Don said,
July 5, 2015 @ 4:40 pm
I don't regard Professor Brians as a peever, but he cautions against "way better" and associates it with the usage of young people. http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/way.html
GH said,
July 5, 2015 @ 5:05 pm
I would have thought this "way" was quintessential Valley Girl (and hence a prime target for peeving). It's used several times in Clueless, for example:
"But seriously, I actually have a way normal life for a teenage girl."
"That's Ren and Stimpy. They're way existential."
"That was way harsh, Tai!"
Wikipedia also lists it as one of the examples of Valleyspeak characteristics.
J.W. Brewer said,
July 5, 2015 @ 5:31 pm
The usage of freestanding "way" to indicate affirmation is, I believe, a backformation from the standard-if-informal AmEng idiom "no way" (which involves "way" as a noun, as a clipped version of "there is no way that …" rather than "way" as an intensifying adverb). It was popularized, if not actually coined, approx a quarter-century ago by the Wayne's World movies, the primary auteur of which was Canadian.
J.W. Brewer said,
July 5, 2015 @ 5:35 pm
For time/regional origin, consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Was_Way_Cool, written circa 1989 by a lifelong New Yorker born 1960 (although apparently he composed it while on a visit to Toronto).
David Morris said,
July 5, 2015 @ 5:46 pm
Possibly related is Bill and Ted's "No way!" "Yes way!".
Jacob said,
July 5, 2015 @ 6:19 pm
Beaches? I'd have written "lives still need guarding."
Paul Kay said,
July 5, 2015 @ 6:26 pm
Not everyone is distinguishing way as an intensifier of comparative adjectives (way more, way older, way richer) from way as an intensifier of simple adjectives (way cool, way rich, way hip). It's my impression, which I'm too lazy to try to demonstrate, that the latter usage is way newer, if not totally way new.
[(myl) I think it's more exactly an intensifier of certain kinds of scalar expressions: "way too much money", "way too many problems", "way too slow", "way in excess of the speed limit", "way over-qualified", etc. I agree that the scalar intensifier usage is different from the simple intensifier seen in "way rich", etc., but as far as I can tell, the various scalar-expression cases all belong together with the comparative adjectives.]
Matt said,
July 5, 2015 @ 8:09 pm
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the rise starting in the eighties was partly fueled by the popularity of California-style "No/yes/∅ way." (And my intuitive sense is that this usage could also help intensifying "way" spread from comparative to simple adjectives as Paul Kay points out above.)
Jason said,
July 5, 2015 @ 10:48 pm
The unaired Buffy: The Vampire Slayer pilot (1996) uses way as the quintessential valley-speak intensifier , eg:
BUFFY
That would have to be the theatre club.
XANDER
Oh, well spotted. What gave it away?
BUFFY
They're always way gesture-y.
(exaggerated gestures)
..
CORDELIA
Dead.
BUFFY
Dead?
CORDELIA
Way dead.
They toned it down a little when the series was picked up.
L said,
July 6, 2015 @ 9:32 am
USSC Justice Kagan raised some eyebrows and arguably brought "way" as an intensifying modifier into the formal mainstream, when she included the following sentence in a majority opinion this term:
"Moreover, Omnicare way overstates both the looseness of the inquiry Congress has mandated and the breadth of liability that approach threatens."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/03/24/way-overstates-in-a-supreme-court-opinion/
Stan Carey said,
July 6, 2015 @ 12:00 pm
There's a short entry on the usage in Kenneth G. Wilson's Columbia Guide to Standard American Usage (1993):
I see it sometimes in academic writing.
Stan Carey said,
July 6, 2015 @ 12:01 pm
Sorry, that should be Columbia Guide to Standard American English.
J. W. Brewer said,
July 6, 2015 @ 3:29 pm
Whatever you might say about Justice Kagan, she's not a Valley Girl, but was born and raised in NYC. (She and the fellow referenced above who wrote the lyrics to "Jesus Was Way Cool" graduated from different elite Manhattan high schools one year apart from each other in the late '70's.)
Note however that if we take Moon Unit Zappa's monologue in "Valley Girl" (1982) to be the classic text of Valspeak, it does not (assuming http://lyrics.wikia.com/Frank_Zappa:Valley_Girl to be a completely accurate transcription) contain the intensifier use of "way" under discussion, although it does include a perfectly standard AmEng (maybe with some Valley-Girl distinctiveness in the pronunciation) "no way." Moon seems perfectly content with "so" as an intensifier, describing various things over the course of the song as being so bitchin', so awesome, so gross, so grody, etc etc.
DWalker said,
July 6, 2015 @ 3:38 pm
I agree, I would expect to see "far fewer" instead of "way fewer" in semi-formal writing as you would expect to see in the NYT and other newspapers.