February 9 2011
UMMM, it’s a pet hate of mine. The words we use as punctuation marks instead of taking a nice, deep, aaaah, breath. I call them lazy words.
They’re verbal crutches – something to help prop up a sentence that is limping along; a resting word to lean on when one’s brain is blown.
My daughter’s generation uses that revolting word which is a teenage crime against literacy. The verbal comma “like”. “I ‘like’ want to ‘like’ go and ‘like’ see that film.” Last week one girl made me laugh out loud: “I really like like that food” – as in “I like the food, but in a kinda-like way.” “Kinda” being often paired with “like”, as a double assault on the eardrum.
An acquaintance uses the words “you know” but an even worse version – “y’nah” – in a very quick tongue-trip so it’s almost an inaudible grunt. He says it helps him think of the next word, poor thing. Continue Reading →
