You might not guess it just by looking at her, but scientists have confirmed that 25-year-old Washington, D.C. resident Letitia Ward will go on to say, “Nothing much!” 300,000 times before she dies.
Wow! What a beautiful phrase signifying absolutely nothing!
Any time someone asks Letitia “What’s up?” she, without fail, answers “Nothing much!” — even at times when very much is up and her life is generally in turmoil.
Given that most of her daily conversations consist of this interaction, she will likely say, “Nothing much!” more times than you could ever imagine.
Scientists can now estimate the phrase “Nothing much!” will be the most used of Letitia’s life, followed closely by other common phrases like “No worries,” “Sounds good,” and “But enough about me!”
“Wait, sorry,” Letitia told reporters at the scene, using another one of her common phrases. “How could they possibly estimate how many times I’ll say, ‘Nothing much’? I say plenty of different things. I don’t even think I say ‘Nothing much’ that much.”
To prove their point, one scientist asked Letitia what she planned to do today.
“Nothing much!” she said, falling right into the trap. “Wait, that’s not fair. I wasn’t ready! I’m doing a lot today! Maybe I’ll get groceries later.”
Without knowing it, Letitia has used the fifth most common phrase in her lexicon: “Maybe I’ll get groceries later.”
“It’s difficult to quantify the frequency of language usage over the course of a human lifetime,” said Lead Researcher Hugh Friedman. “But in this one case, it was actually super easy. Letitia says ‘Nothing much’ about 10 times every day. The average female human life span is 81.1 years, but when you take into consideration that she smokes (only when she’s drunk, of course) that brings her lifespan down to about 80 years, or around 30,000 days. Hence, we can estimate she’ll say, ‘Nothing much!’ 300,000 times, including exactly 10 times on the day she dies.”
Nice job with that callous, sad math, Dr. Friedman!
Upon being informed of this exact calculation method, Letitia took a long pause, then said, “Smoking is only going to take a year off my life? Huh, would have assumed that’d be more.”
She’s in shock!
At press time, scientists asked Letitia whether she had any significant life changes in mind following the results of the study.
“Mmm, nothing much,” she replied. “Wait, fuck. I mean yes. Many. Absolutely. So much!”
Sure, babe! We’ll believe it when we hear it!
