“Well ... like ... yeah.”

Language Speaking of like, like, vageness has crept into the language. We are do it. We've all kind of like slipped into a way of speaking in which it's almost impossible not to, y'know, um, aha, use twice as many words than is required to get our point across, much of it linguistic noise.

According to this piece by Clark Whelton in City Journal, it's because over time teachers have stopped correcting us at a vital age which means that our then juvenile ways of speaking continue well into adulthood. He first became aware of it in the 80s during job interviews:

"The first applicant was a young man from NYU. During the interview, he spiked his replies so heavily with “like” that I mentioned his frequent use of the word. He seemed confused by my comment and replied, “Well . . . like . . . yeah.” Now, nobody likes a grammar prig. All’s fair in love and language, and the American lingo is in constant motion. “You should,” for example, has been replaced by “you need to.” “No” has faded into “not really.” “I said” is now “I went.” As for “you’re welcome,” that’s long since become “no problem.” Even nasal passages are affected by fashion. Quack-talking, the rasping tones preferred by many young women today, used to be considered a misfortune."

Of course there is at least one good use for "I'm like..."



(1) Muppets!
(2) Gwyneth!
(3) Cee Lo navigating the cleaned up radio version of his song whilst dressed as 70s Elton!
(4) Annoying banner advert on the YouTube embed because the rubbish The Grammys channel doesn't include performances which leaves other miscreants to helpfully enter the market!