I am not sure why I find this so fascinating, but it is interesting to consider linguistic habits and why we use them. I am always conscious of things we do without thinking, such as a common or trite phrase that we repeat frequently. I did some rare in-person shopping today; I needed to buy a few things and could not wait for the shipping. I visited three places: a department store, a pharmacy, and a grocery store. In each scenario, the same linguistic habit occurred. After the total was reached at the cash register, the cashier repeated the total and said, “For today.” For example, they said, “That will be 216.35 for today.”
I think I have heard this same phrase many times in the past and hardly noticed. I thought, I wonder if there was a training course for cashiers at these stores where they told them, “be sure to end with for today when giving a price.” Does the customer ever ask, “would the price change tomorrow, or maybe next week?”
I started pondering this today and came up with some kind of hypothesis as to the root cause of this rote phrase. Seems to me that this phrase is used as a softener. “That will be 35 dollars, pay now,” seems abrupt and has a finality to it. When the cashier adds “for today,” it seems to indicate that there might be another day and that this will not be the last of our encounters. The cashier is signaling the end of this brief encounter and doing so in a way that indicates an degree of politeness. Perhaps the reason this is so common at department stores is a cultural phenomenon. When you hear other people use the phrase, you naturally start to pick it up as well. Maybe my grandmother, who worked at Harris’ in downtown Riverside, CA many decades ago was the one that first started this trend and then it just snowballed. We will never know.
Then again there is also another likely candidate. A marketing campaign by a retailer that was pushing temporary discounts for specials that were, “today only.” So naturally people would end the final total with special emphasis. This is “19.99 for today,” as if to indicate that on this special day you got a discount. This seems like a good candidate, and perhaps this marketing campaign has influenced cashiers for ever and into all eternity to use the phrase, “for today.”
I think this idea of linguistic habit is important to consider because without knowing it you allow phrases like this to enter into your vocabulary. You might be repeating a phrase constantly and not even know it. Writing everyday has really caused me really understand how much I really use the word really to add emphasis. It is really really annoying. The word really does not really add anything to what you are trying to say. For the most part, I have learned to remove that word from my writing all together. Adverbs are commonly misused and overused in our everyday speech and that spills into our writing.
So, while we are on the subject, we can talk about interjections. So is one that I use all the time. An interjection is usually used as a shortcut to aid in transitions between subjects. This shortcut is poor grammar, and if you are not careful, you will find yourself repeating this constantly and adding other meaningless words as well. So, anyway…
If you need to say something, the general idea is that you should state exactly what you mean with succinct and precise language. This is an unreachable ideal, of course. However, I find it interesting that this ambition seems to have fallen off the radar in modern society. When I was a child, this was a high standard for which we all tried to achieve. Learning new vocabulary and learning how to properly use the language were ambitions that seemed common. However, nowadays, we are mesmerized by sound bites, clips, and memes.
In my first year of college, I had an english teacher who would assign a paper and ask you to turn the paper in the next day. When you bring the paper in, she will quickly scan through the writing. If she saw one issue, she would slash a red mark through it, say, “F,” and then tell you to try again. This process continued repeatedly until you finally got an A. This method of instruction was quite intimidating, but I will say that I learned more about writing during that semester than all the years of my previous schooling combined. She was from the old school, where language was to be considered precious, and we needed to be good stewards of the language we chose to use in our lives. I still remember the day when I gave her my carefully typed paper and watched her read through each paragraph. Then, with a shrug, I turned the paper back to me and said, “A.”
That moment stuck with me. It wasn’t just about getting the A; it was about understanding the value of words, of crafting language carefully and deliberately. I remember feeling a strange sense of accomplishment, not because of the grade but because I realized I had written something that mattered — something that took a great deal of effort to get right.
It made me think about how often we overlook the words we use every day, like “for today” at the cash register. We hear them, we repeat them, and we adopt them without question. They become part of our verbal habits, the background noise of our interactions. And perhaps that’s fine for some moments, but I think it’s important to pause and reflect on what we’re actually saying. What do our words communicate about us? What do they reveal about the world we’re part of?
Language is one of the most powerful tools we have. It shapes our thoughts, our relationships, and even our identities. But, like anything powerful, it needs attention. It needs practice. I think back to that old-school teacher with her red pen, and I realize that what she taught me wasn’t just about writing well; it was about being intentional with my voice, with how I present myself to the world.
So now, when I catch myself overusing a word or relying on some tired phrase, I try to correct it. Because at the end of the day, words are all we have to communicate who we are — and maybe it’s worth putting a little extra care into how we use them.
