[Ads-l] Query on "low(-)key"

[Laurence Horn]

This is for a student working on a semantic/pragmatic analysis of adverbial “low(-)key”, both in its use as a downtoning scalar modifier (“I’m low-key happy about it”= ‘kind of/somewhat happy’, often with a suggestion of reluctance to admit it) and as a downtoning marker indicating weakened speaker commitment “Lowkey, can we eat outside?” = ‘I’m tentatively suggesting that we eat outside’).  The distinction is similar to one for other adverbs like “totally” that have been discussed in the literature.  

What my student and I are wondering is whether there’s any work out there we should know about, and how and when this originated (as a shift from the adjectival “low(-)key”).  Was there a mention in Among the New Words I should know about?  A WOTY nomination from years past? 

(The OED just has the adjectival source, “low-key” glossed as ‘modest’, but nothing on the adverb in either use. There’s a lot more on TikTok!) 

Thanks,
LH
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