It's okay, we're all guilty of this one. It's highly contagious and hard to shake, and a lot of people don't even realize how they use the word 'like' as a vocalized pause until they hear a recording of their conversation played back to them. I think it's especially funny that searching for "the word like" on Google lands you on pages that discuss how to permanently remove this nasty one from your vocabulary for good.I apologize in advance if this post causes you to start counting or focusing on how many times people you are listening to use 'like' in their sentences.
Many people, including myself, associate 'like,' when used as a vocal pause as a replacement for "uh", "um", and other weird things we say when we are pausing to think about what to say next, with teenager or childish methods of communication. Excessive use of this word has negative connotations that reach back to that of Shaggy on "Scooby Doo" or the Valley girls in the movie "Clueless." Luckily, it has not yet worked as well on paper as it does in contemporary conversation. Consider the following examples of this word abuse:
1) And then I was like, "no way!"
2) That's like near State Street.
Would you take an article seriously if they wrote their thoughts like this? In the first example, "was like" replaces "said" or "screamed" or some verb that would give this sentence meaning. It doesn't make any sense! How did you resemble "no way" in any shape or form? In the second example, we see that 'like' can be omitted without any consequence. It really has no place in the sentence at all.
So why is 'like' so popular? Why has it become such a habit? There are interesting theories that say that today's youth never like to express their thoughts concretely, preferring instead to soften their expressions using a "fuzzy" word such as 'like.' Personally, I tend to use the word in this way when I get excited about an event that occurred and try to explain it to a group of friends as quickly as possible. I have also been told that when I am consciously trying to not say 'like' I sometimes come across as too serious or even suspicious, which makes this pet peeve even more of a mystery, since most dignitaries or orators never seem to let the word seep into their language.
I guess the real question is: will the baby boomer who might be your future boss appreciate how well your conversation matches that of a Valley girl? Don't get me wrong, Shaggy is a pretty cool cat, but we all know that hippie never got a real job!
Enough said.
I like (proper usage) this response because I identify with it. Like the author of this blog, “like” is a commonly used in my everyday language as a useless and illogical filler word. The author successfully and logically delivered his message to the audience in a delightful and comical way. I especially enjoyed the references to “Shaggy” as a symbol for our generation. This is a comical reference that encapsulates the youth of our generation from our childhood experiences to our common use of filler words such as like, um, and aaa.
ReplyDeleteYour article inspired me to listen to my fellow classmates and by doing so I overheard a girl on her cell phone talking,
“Seriously, like he can’t just do that, like come on.”
It may have been the fact that t I just read this blog post, but I found this conversation hilarious. This conversation made me agree with the author on the use of like. We are all guilty of using the word like, and most of us accept other people using it in a conversation. However, if we read articles with filler words like like and ummm we would lose all respect for the author’s opinions. This is a great point that everyone can agree with. Words such as like are language pet peeves that the majority of people use in verbal communication, but they abstain from using them in written forms of communication. So if we realize that these filler words are useless and illogical why do we use them? Personally I find myself not even consciously aware of using them in my oral language.
Filler words are used unconsciously and can severely hurt your rapport with your audience. In professional communications (Gen Bus 300) I had to give three presentations that were video recorded. After watching the video of my first presentation I was shocked and appalled at my usage of like and aaaa. Until watching my presentation, I never considered myself a culprit user of these filler words. The author seems to think our generation is doomed to use these filler words in our forms of communication; however that is not the case. For my next two presentations I consciously made an attempt to not use these filler words and I successfully delivered stronger class presentations.
In conclusion, the author made a comical and valid point about using filler words. However, we are not doomed to use these words. In order to remove our unconscious verbal crutches of conversational language we must consciously think about what we want to say before we start talking.
Otherwise, like, we might just like, be stuck in like a world of aaaa pointless filler words like………..
I completely agree with this post. Anytime I hear someone overuse the word "like" I assume they are poorly educated or just dumb. And even if they are not it takes a lot to convince me that a person who uses "like" in every sentence is not of questionable intelligence.
ReplyDeleteI would definitely fall into the category of people who do not want to express their thoughts concretely. It always seems easier to use qualifying words before an opinion because then you always have an out and can avoid conflict if someone strongly disagrees with you.
After all of that I must admit that I am a victim of using words such as "um" or "uh". However, as a person with a stutter these words help me not stutter by controlling my breathing. So even though I hate it and it makes me sound less intelligent I have fallen into a trap and cannot escape.
I definitely agree with what your saying. The word "like" has been completely over used. I think that the problem is it's an issue that not too many people address. I think it has become so apart of our culture that a lot of people don't notice it, and even if they do notice it I don't think there is much conviction. The word does defuse concreteness in arguments. I have a friend from the UK and when she came over here she would laugh every time someone would say like because she says it's unheard of over there.
ReplyDeleteMaybe an easier way to go about fixing the problem would be to have teachers reinforce using concrete sentences when speaking. This would also have to happen in the home as well. We would have to take these dumb reality shows off the air as well because I feel like these, such as the one that you have posted, are one of the biggest fuels of the fire. If this happened I feel there would be an overall shift back to standard language with out the needlessness of the word "like."