Deborah Tannen - a linguist at Georgetown, who, with her book "You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation," may have overtaken Noam Chomsky and become the best-known linguist in America - contends that broad theorizing about uptalk is downright foolish.

She glanced at her two companions and went on, "Charles says it would be downright foolish not to sell.

In fact, it was downright foolish.

"To suggest that its integrity can somehow be undermined is downright foolish," he said.

That would be downright foolish of me.

"Which is downright foolish."

Downright foolish for a woman who lives alone.

Well, a hill run would've been downright foolish and it is flat this-a-way.

Laura Corcoran and Matthew Jones continued to serve up idiosyncratic mash-ups of pop numbers famous, forgotten and downright foolish.

The trade has been widely criticized, and at times has looked downright foolish.