Approximating/Vague language

1. Vague expressions or language uses very general, often informal words, instead of specific words to refer to things, activities or situations. These expressions basically mean, the speaker thinks it isn’t necessary to go into detail as the listener understands what they mean.

Some of the most frequent are the phrases:

INFORMAL		FORMAL
...or something,		…and so on,
…and things like that,		…and so forth,
…and stuff,
…and everything,
…or whatever,
…and that kind of thing,
…and that sort of stuff.

Vague expressions or language uses very general, often informal words, instead of specific words to refer to things, activities or situations. These expressions basically mean, the speaker thinks it isn’t necessary to go into detail as the listener understands what they mean.

For instance: or something can refer to singular and plural nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs.
He was angry or something. I don’t know what his problem was.

The expression and stuff mostly follows plural countable nouns
What about sweaters and stuff?

And things can follow singular and uncountable nouns as well as verbs

I can call her up for advice and things.

2. Vague or approximating language is also very common when we isn’t necessary to go into detail as the listener understands what they mean.

Don’t know the name of something,
Want to make something sounds less factual
Want to talk about groups and categories.

1. Here are some informal vague expressions for when we don’t know the name of something

What do you call it?
What’s it called?
It’s kind of /sort of/ a type of (X), or something, thing, stuff

A: He had a, err, what do you call it, a fight with his brother.
B: You mean an argument?
A: Yeah, exactly.

A: It’s a kind of tool for making a hole in the wall so you can hang a picture.
B: Ah, you mean a drill.

A: He can’t come because he’s got a headache or something.

3. Here are some very informal vague expressions for when we don’t know the name of something or we can’t remember it. a thingy, a thingummy, a thingamajig, a whatsit, a whatitscalled etc.

A: We need one of those…, you know, you need a whatsit to light the fire. One of those thingamajigs smokers have to light their cigarettes.
B: You mean a lighter?
A: Yeah, that’s it!

4. We use expressions like and things like that, and that kind of thing, and stuff like that, that kind of stuff etc, to indicate that the examples of a group or list carry on.

She likes swimming, sailing and kite-surfing and that kind of thing.

5. We use the suffix –ish with a number or a noun to indicate the idea of approximately.

I felt so sorry for him on the boat. He was quite green-ish; I think he might have been feeling seasick.

Let’s meet around 9-ish, shall we?

I’d say she’s about 35-ish.