Right. Right. Right. Right.

There's a dark new trend on the horizon in talk radio. It's the dawn of "right." Not the Right, as in Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, or Bill Bennett. I'm talking about the prodigious use of the word "right" as a semantic crutch. I'm lookin' at you Elliot, and Chad Dukes, and you, random evening-but-not-late-night dude on WJFK.

Let me 'splain...

On multiple occasions on all of these shows, someone will call in to share a story. At brief pauses during the caller's ramblings, the above-mentioned talk-show hosts will punctuate the lull with "Right." I think they're doing this to indicate that they are engaged in the caller's tale, but it just sounds like it confuses the listener. It definitely gives me pause (har har) because I'm a Gen Xer, and whenever someone of my skeptical era hears "Right" in a conversation, it makes the speaker sound sarcastic and disinterested.

I'm not saying that it isn't appropriate to sound saracastic and disinterested on occasion. If people were calling me to dissect the latest NASCAR race, I might sound bored outta my skull too. All I'm saying is that the radio hosts should change it up a little since every other host in the same demographic is overusing it.