expressionsphrase-usageword-usage
Is the expression seriously speaking redundant? For example:
[A asks a question]
[B replies with a joke]
[A and B laugh]
B: No, seriously (speaking), I came to visit my mom.
I think writing "No, seriously…" would imply that A is not believing what B is saying (which isn't the case in my example above).
I'm not very sure, though.
I also thought of the expression talking seriously. But I think I'm translating directly from Spanish (hablando enserio).
This expression did not originate with television. It has a much longer history, dating possibly to the 17th century. From Wikipedia:
The phrase "speaks with a forked tongue" means to say one thing and mean another or, to be hypocritical, or act in a duplicitous manner. In the longstanding tradition of many Native American tribes, "speaking with a forked tongue" has meant lying, and a person was no longer considered worthy of trust, once he had been shown to "speak with a forked tongue". This phrase was also adopted by Americans around the time of the Revolution, and may be found in abundant references from the early 19th century — often reporting on American officers who sought to convince the tribal leaders with whom they negotiated that they "spoke with a straight and not with a forked tongue" (as for example, President Andrew Jackson told the Creek Nation in 1829[16]) According to one 1859 account, the native proverb that the "white man spoke with a forked tongue" originated as a result of the French tactic of the 1690s, in their war with the Iroquois, of inviting their enemies to attend a Peace Conference, only to be slaughtered or captured.[17]
As you can see, Andrew Jackson used the expression in 1829, which was well before television and even radio.
This Google NGram supports the contention that the phrase has existed for a long, long time:
An expression that gives me a not entirely healthy satisfaction and which I'll offer is:
He bit the dust.
It's a very old phrase that means "he died", but it just sounds so damn pathetic.
EDIT: This just occurred to me after seeing the f-bombs dropped in the comments. I remember that Tommy and Turkish in the movie "Snatch" use the expression
He got proper fucked
to refer to someone who's been killed. Actually, here they're referring to a rabbit, but the idea's the same. Urban Dictionary has a definition that doesn't do a whole lot of good, but it supports the idea that to be fucked could be bad, but to be proper fucked is terminal.
This term, to the best of my knowledge, is strictly British English.
Best Answer
Here's a BrE example
But there is also the reverse
Seriously speaking in not really often used in those kind of conversations but it used in other conversations.
If someone is building a house, and you give advice to them along the lines of ...
You might enhance this further by saying
tanalised wood is wood that has been pressure treated with a preservative.