Recently the New Zealand Herald lauded a mid-twenties woman for running a restaurant which is hardly a unique accomplishment.
Here’s an extract of the interview in which the subject discusses the pressures of her role, this after greeting a regular customer.
“I said, take a seat. Really nice to see you.” And she just looks at me and she’s like, “What’s wrong?” And I’m like, “Nothing’s wrong. What do you mean? I’m having a great day”….and so it went; sheer mindboggling infantile speech abuse.
This “like” nonsense emerged a few years back, mainly with teenage girls. But not entirely.
I was flabbergasted to read an interview with a 42 year old best-selling American writer, Lisa Taddeo. Lisa is the daughter of a doctor and has a university education.
Below is an unbelievable extract from her interview with The Times, during her visit to London.
Is this gibberish primarily a female thing? Readers’ comments welcome.
18 Comments
” ..you know like Jacinda’s aksed me like to stand for Labour ..like …a “
Welcome back Bob. Exactly right…it’s appalling and here’s another one, fink…as in nothfink, (nothing) I’m surprised it hasn’t turned up in Stuff articles!!!
Our Prime Minister says that.
Like, here’s an example
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/300629523/gynaecologist-accused-of-inappropriate-comment-during-exam
No, it’s not only a female thing Bob. My neighbour’s early teen son often uses “like”. Uninspiring though it may be, seems it’s just the language of a younger age group. I don’t particularly “like” it, but at least they’re speaking in a language I can understand. It’s a very small mercy, but in NZ in 2022, I’m happy to put on my glasses to find a mercy. Glad you’re back.
At high school an teacher I had for English drummed it it in to us that “All of a sudden” was very poor grammar and the single word “suddenly” should be used instead. As a consequence of that, for the last sixty years whenever I see all of a sudden written or hear it spoken it pisses me off. Another thing that annoys me is millennial females raising the last word of a sentence half an octave.
Topical as always Bob. I overhead a male colleague in his late twenties last week use the meaningless conjunction “like” seven times in one sentence (yes, I counted). He was talking to a younger, attractive female. I think to some extent it is way of conveying credentials as a hip and with it type individual. Also, and unintentionally, that you are a bit of a moron.
Hi Bob. I concur. A few years ago I had a partner who’s teenage daughter was addicted to “like”. It permeated every single sentence of every single conversation. It drove me slowly mad.
One day I recorded it & then went back & removed every single “like”. It was amazing how much it shortened her conversation & how much more sense she made. I brought this up in gentle conversation & suggested she perhaps tried to drop the superfluous word “like”.
Her reply? “Like, why?” I, like, had to reach for the, like, wine bottle……..
An example of how empowered the female has become, and it appears almost capacity of anything.
With three daughters, I have my foot in both campers…
While mine are unlikely to be this dangerous, Amber Heard might be one to avoid…
Glad your back,Great to have realistic commentary.A couple of other examples commonly utter by JA and news readers are Inlind for inland and bin for been,seems a Aotearoaian dialect is developing
‘This “like” nonsense emerged a few years back, mainly with teenage girls . . .’
The use (or abuse) “like” in this manner has been around for at least two generations. In the 1940s and 50s it was used mainly by males:
‘Could you lend us a couple of quid till payday mate?’
‘I’m a bit short myself like, but I could manage ten bob.’
In this sense it seemed to be an intensifier to an apologetic tone.
Some time in the late 60s or 70s it became a fashionable usage amongst Val girls – young women living in the San Fernando Valley – whence it migrated, along with a collection of other curious speech patterns to the much of the English-speaking world.
And it has endured. In the mid 90s there was a large poster on a building in Christchurch’s Victoria Street showing a young man drowning. The caption on the poster was ‘Like, help’.
Yes yes but like can “it” say like in Te Reo like?
Will this country like be silly enough to ever vote woke again ?
Like yes.
We are like totally silly like.
‘This “like” nonsense emerged a few years back, mainly with teenage girls . . .’
The use (or abuse) “like” in this manner has been around for at least two generations. In the 1940s and 50s it was used mainly by males:
‘Could you lend us a couple of quid till payday mate?’
‘I’m a bit short myself, like, but I could manage ten bob.’
In this sense it seemed to be an intensifier to an apologetic tone.
Some time in the late 60s or 70s it became a fashionable usage amongst Val girls – young women living in the San Fernando Valley – whence it migrated, along with a collection of other curious speech patterns to much of the English-speaking world.
And it has endured. In the mid 90s there was a large poster on a building in Christchurch’s Victoria Street showing a young man drowning. The caption on the poster was ‘Like, help’. The building was destroyed in the earthquake.
I’m guilty of using the like word in this manner because I’m dealing with a multi culture of people where English is not the first language, or they are simply not readers.
We try to impose our English phrases which “go over their head” like. Without the word like the people take it too literally and don’t understand the often double meaning the English language has. Like “it’s a mountain of work” to understand every such phrase
Frightening reality !!
Who needs education, like a.
Leaning into ‘like’ is just so, like, millennial, right? Know what I’m saying? So is beginning an answer to every question with ‘So.’ Really!
Yeah right.
Didn’t ‘like’ replace ‘um’ for a while?