MẪU CÂU TIẾNG ANH VỀ USING VAGUE LANGUAGE

Conversation Vocabulary & Phrases

In spoken English, it’s very common to use vague (not precise or exact) expressions.

Quantities & Qualities

When estimating time, distance, number, or some other measurement, we often make a guess if we don't know or can't remember the exact number.

You can use around or about to show it's a guess. The more formal way is approximately:

•  “It costs about $1000.”
•  “It costs approximately $1000.”
•  “It costs more or less $1000. ( WRONG )

             Don’t say this – it doesn’t sound natural

•  “We drove around 10 miles.”
•  “She’s about 40 years old.”

Another way to estimate quantity is to use -odd and or so after the number:

•  “There were 20-odd people in the meeting.”

              -odd is usually used directly after a number.

•  “He weighs 200 pounds or so.”

To express a small quantity, you can say a couple of (for countable nouns, 2-4 objects) or a bit of (for uncountable nouns):

•  “I bought a couple of T-shirts at the store.” (T-shirts = countable)
•  “You need to add a bit of salt to this soup.” (salt = uncountable)

For food, you can use a dash of (for spices and liquids) or a dollop of (for soft substances):

•  “There's a dash of paprika in this recipe.”
•  “To make this cocktail, take fruit juice and add a dash of tequila.”
•  “I like to put a dollop of whipped cream on my hot chocolate.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum, here are some vague expressions for large quantities:

•  loads of / tons of (countable and uncountable nouns)

           o I ate tons of cookies at the party.
           o I drank tons of juice at the party.

•  a bunch of / quite a few (countable nouns only)

           o There are a bunch of bookstores on that street.
           o I bought quite a few books yesterday.

Finally, to describe qualities (and sometimes time) we can add the suffix -ish:

•  I leave the house at six-ish, maybe 6:30 if I'm running late.
•  She has reddish brown hair.

           (brown with a little bit of red)

Two VERY common ways to say "a little" + quality are sort of and kind of, which most people pronounce as sorta and kinda in informal spoken English:

•  I'm sorta tired.
• These shoes are kinda ugly.

Note: The formal equivalents of these words are somewhat or rather.

Placeholders

Vague words are also used as placeholders - taking the place of the more specific word.

We can use the vague word thing for objects – both physical and non-physical:

•  General situation:

           o How are things at work?
           o Things have been going really well for me lately!

•  Objects:

           o What are those things on the table?
           o Oh - those are computer parts; I was fixing my laptop. I'll put them away.

•  Facts, Ideas, Actions:

           o Here's the thing (=fact): not everybody on the team is doing their part.
           o I'm not sure what we're going to do on our vacation, but I have a few things (=actions/ideas) in mind.
           o We considered a lot of things (=ideas/factors) before deciding to buy a house.

We can also use the vague word stuff for plural and uncountable nouns. Differently from the word thing/things, the word stuff is uncountable (don’t say “stuffs”). 

• You like tomato juice? I think that stuff (=liquid, substance) is disgusting!
•  When we moved to another city, I had to rent a truck to take all our stuff (=possessions)
•  Sorry I'm so preoccupied. There's a lot of stressful stuff (=situations) going on at my job right now.

The informal words whatchamacallit / thingamajig / thingy are used for items for which you can't remember the name of the object - as you can see in the dialogue.

If you are trying to remember someone else's name, you can use whatsisname / whatsername until you remember it.

•  I talked to that guy who works at the bank... whatsisname... Randy Smith - on Friday.

Sentence Beginners & Enders

Finally, we have some sentence beginners and enders that help indicate that we are making a guess or being vague.

To make a guess, you can start your sentence with these phrases:

•  “It's difficult to say, but I think...”
•  “I’d say...”
•  “I'm not really sure, but I'd say...”
•  “Off the top of my head, I'd say...”
•  “If I had to take a guess, I'd say...”
•  “It's somewhere in the region/ballpark of...”

             (only for numbers: “It’s somewhere in the ballpark of 100 miles.”)

In the dialogue, we also saw some examples of ending sentences in a way that leaves them vague or implies similar things:

•  ...or whatever / ...or something

            I'll probably go for a jog in the park or whatever.
            (= or a similar activity)

•  ...and that kind of thing

            We had to call Kim's cousin, who’s good with cars and that kind of thing.
            (= and that type of topic/activity)

•  ...or something like that / ...or something along those lines

            Did you go to a friend’s house or something like that?
            (= or a similar activity; of a similar type)
 

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