I know, right?

The internet takes you on wonderful journeys, and today I found out about adverbial adjuncts. My path there began by wondering about the overused and redundant ‘to be honest’ that is added to statements.

To be honest I always lie.

Unsure person

Similarly there is the popular (and probably American) ‘go ahead’, as in ‘I’m going to go ahead’. This is something that seems unnecessary, and almost a meta statement of intent.

I’m going to go ahead and do this thing

Indirect person

One of my least favourite, and not an adverbial adjunct itself, is ‘is there a reason’.

Is there a reason you did this thing?

Passive-aggressive person

The answer is almost always yes, there is a reason. There are probably many reasons. They may not be good reasons, but asking in this way seems like an indirect accusation:

Why did you do this dumb thing?

Aggressive person

I’ve probably used this many times myself and I’m certainly going to try using alternatives.