Kate: Yeah can I I mean can I ask you Russell: Yeah absolutely
Kate: whether you that you know whether you you frequent saunas
There’s something about Kate’s use of the term that catches my attention.
Something about her awkward stopping and starting as she approaches the verb: “whether you that you know whether you you frequent saunas”. I follow up:
Russell: what what do you associate I.i.58:00
that verb with frequenting something Kate: Frequenting would be to do it like Russell: Like you don’t say visit (I laugh a little)
Kate: Visit (she laughs) visit [unintelligible] frequent frequent to me means more than you know a couple of times in a week say [unintelligible]
Russell: Do you think of frequenting a club Kate: Yeah
Russell: Yeah you do think of frequenting a club okay so
Russell: No no Kate: Yeah whether it
Russell: It sense well I had the sense you didn’t use it that much Kate: No
Russell: There was something point like slightly pointed or I.i.58:30
lifted out a bit like it’s like it’s in inverted commas or (Kate laughs) but I’m wondering what what that might be connected with
Kate: The frequenting
Russell: Yeah what you about that kind of place like you Kate: Oh right
Russell: But then you said with a club you’d use it too Kate: I would use it too yeah
Russell: But you don’t use it often you said
Kate: No (we laugh) whether I you know oh well I wouldn’t say it sort of you know I wouldn’t say you know I frequent the cinema or
I.i.59:00
I would I would say with clubs I’d say
In his first interview, Apollo also uses the verb
Apollo: but um I became really like not a happy person and I would I would frequent you know um these kinds of places like for you know every day for say a week and then I’d stop for I don’t know a couple of weeks
I.i.68:30 and then I’d get back into it
and I follow up with him, too:
Russell: What do you mean by frequent Apollo: Frequent I frequented these places Russell: Yeah that’s a new verb you’ve introduced Apollo: Frequent
Russell: What do you mean
Russell: Yeah but you were saying that earlier like going there and visiting but now you’re using the term frequent is there is there what are you doing when you’re frequenting a place
Apollo: You you’re more than visiting I.i.69:00
you’re you’re you know you’re hanging out you know you’re going to go there and you know hang out and partake in you know um
Russell: Do you frequent your home Apollo: No I don’t frequent
Russell: But you hang out here
Apollo: Yeah but I’m here all a lot of the time I don’t I wouldn’t say I frequent my home I just don’t think I’d use that word for my home
Russell: Right okay right Apollo: You know um
I.i.69:30
I used to go there frequently I mean you know Russell: (I laugh a little) Okay
And with Charlie, too, in his second interview. He’s talking about a relaxed man with whom he spoke in the locker area at a sauna:
Charlie: like he didn’t seem from the that II.i.56:00
place but in fact when I spoke to him yeah he’s frequented it quite regularly just not at the times that I usually go but anyway sorry that’s a bit off the point or off not off the point but just adding more to it
Russell: Well I’m I’m going I’m going to change the topic Charlie: Yeah
Russell: Because there’s a few other things that have come up in the time we’ve got available that I wouldn’t mind touching on can you tell me about the word frequent (I pronounce it as in the infinitive to frequent)
Charlie:
II.i.56:30
I can’t frequent no I sort of that was a word frequent
Russell: It’s a word that you spoke when you used when you talked to me the first time um and it’s a word you’ve used a couple of times today and it’s a word that other
interviewees I’ve had have used talking about frequenting places rather than say going to them or visiting them
II.i.57:00
or maybe in addition to saying visiting and going but using that term frequenting Charlie: I think I’ve s I first heard that word from you
Russell: Oh yeah
Charlie: Yeah and I think I’m just I use it when I’m speaking to you Russell: Yeah
Charlie: um as sad as that sounds um yeah it’s something that sort of Russell:
II.i.57:30
It’s interesting because it’s interesting you say that because I’m not aware it’s a word I use that’s why I hear it when other people use it because I think oh that’s interesting they think of frequenting saunas whereas I don’t
Charlie: Right
Russell: So if I’ve used it Charlie: Yeah
Russell: then that’s interesting Charlie: Yeah you use two words Russell: Oh yeah what’s the other one Charlie: Frequency and regularity Russell: I
II.i.58:00
might ask about frequency and regularity but in terms of the verb as to frequent something I can’t think of any place that I think of myself as frequenting which it’s almost like it’s a word the police use you know um and yeah I’m really interested because a couple of people
II.i.58:30
I’ve spoken with have used that term so for instance I’ve well no I’ll leave it at that you’ve answered it you’ve told me you know you think you’ve heard me say it and you’ve picked it up from that is it a word you use to apply to other places do you frequent the supermarket
Charlie: No
II.i.59:00
probably not I don’t know whether I frequent the supermarket I go regularly to the supermarket
None of the three seems to use the verb to frequent frequently. Even though Kate imagines that she could use it in relation to a club, she doesn’t think she does. Apollo seems not to use it much at all, certainly not in relation to his home. Charlie’s clear that he’s borrowed the word from me, even though I’m confident that I rarely if ever use it, a confidence that’s reinforced by scrutiny of the
interview transcripts later on. I hear this word, when Kate, Apollo and Charlie use it, precisely because its occurrence is so abnormal in the discursive scenarios I
usually inhabit, including the interviews. It sounds odd, loaded. But then Kate, Apollo and Charlie are in discursive scenarios that they don’t usually inhabit, too; they’re being interviewed. I wonder what it is that they’re performing, what script they’re citing, and for whom, when they speak it:
Charlie: um but let’s face it you know I do not find saunas inspiring um you know I find certain people inspiring but the saunas the way they’re built the couple I’ve been to they’re just yeah they’re they’re just they don’t they’re not inspiring I must admit um and that’s something
II.i.31:00
that you know I’m taking into consideration and I think I’m frequenting them less because of you know because of that
Only Joe, whose sauna experience at the time of the interviews is far more extensive than that of Apollo, Charlie and Kate, especially in the sense of one who is well practised in speaking with others about that experience, uses the word with an apparently natural ease, a naturalism that slips under my radar:
Joe: and um I was working at the pub and had even before then been frequenting that sauna because I thought it was fantastic and it was so
I.i.13:30 big and you know whatever
Joe: Probably the only time I’d actually go II.i. 09:00
into the dry sauna don’t tend to frequent them very much only really go in them when I was be drying myself
I never ask Joe to elaborate on his use of the verb.