NASHVILLE, TN — A Sunday brunch at The Fig & Flax Cafe descended into what linguists are now calling a “semantic void” after Marcus Ellery, 31, used the word intentional eleven times in forty minutes without once specifying what he intended to do, or about what, or for whom.

Ellery, a certified life coach and part-time podcast co-host, reportedly deployed the term across topics including his morning routine, his new relationship, his relationship with carbohydrates, his relationship with his mother, and “just, like, the way I move through space now.”

“I’m really trying to be more intentional,” Ellery told his dining companions, according to witness accounts. “About everything. Just—intentional. You know?” Seated across from him, Priya Nair, 29, nodded and reached for her water glass in what she later described as “a coping mechanism.”

“He said it so many times it stopped being a word. It became, like, a spiritual drone.”

Dr. Janet Coulter, 57, a sociolinguist at Vanderbilt University who was not present but was reached by phone, confirmed the phenomenon is spreading. “Words like intentional, authentic, and journey have entered a phase we call terminal vagueness,” she said. “They mean everything, which means they mean nothing.”

Ellery later posted a 200-word Instagram caption about the brunch. The word intentional appeared four times. The word “God” did not appear.

At press time, Ellery had begun using the phrase “sitting with it” and table companions were quietly signaling for the check.