For your, like, edification

[y66]

From Like, Degrading the Language? No Way by John McWhorter:

 

If there is one thing that unites Americans of all stripes, it is the belief that, whatever progress our country might be making, we are moving backward on language. Just look at the crusty discourse level of comments sections and the recreational choppiness of text messages and hit pop songs.

 

However, amid what often seems like the slack-jawed devolution of a once-mighty language, we can find evidence for, of all things, a growing sophistication.

 

Yes, sophistication — even in the likes of, well, “like,” used so prolifically by people under a certain age. We associate it with ingrained hesitation, a fear of venturing a definite statement. Yet the hesitation can be seen less as a matter of confidence than one of consideration.

 

“Like” often functions to acknowledge objection while underlining one’s own point. To say, “This is, like, the only way to make it work,” is to implicitly recognize that this news may be unwelcome to the hearer, and to soften the blow by offering one’s suggestion discreetly swathed in a garb of hypothetical-ness.

 

“Like, the only way to do it” operates on the same principle as other expressions, such as making a request with the phrasing, “If you could open the door ...” — hypothetical, when what you intend is quite concrete. “Like” can seem somehow sloppier, but only because youth and novelty always have a way of seeming sloppy.

 

What’s actually happening is that casual American speech is, in its “like” fetish, more polite than it was before. Sooner than we know it, the people using “like” this way will be on walkers, and all will be right with the world.

Totally.

[kenberg]

From Like, Degrading the Language? No Way by John McWhorter:

 

 

Totally.

 

Like he sayin totally but I'm like thinkin no way dude but you got your space and I got mine man so I say if that's what floats your boat, dig it, I'm cool.

[Chas_P]

Like he sayin totally but I'm like thinkin no way dude but you got your space and I got mine man so I say if that's what floats your boat, dig it, I'm cool.

 

Yeah, man. I know what you be sayin'. Hey!

[ArtK78]

Yeah, man. I know what you be sayin'. Hey!

You know, like, it is what it is.

[Bbradley62]

Like he sayin totally but I'm like thinkin no way dude but you got your space and I got mine man so I say if that's what floats your boat, dig it, I'm cool.

Wow! You got several generations in there.

[blackshoe]

'"Contact" is not a verb!' -- Nero Wolfe, ca. 1935.

[Trinidad]

You know, there is, you know, nothing new under the, you know, sun. If you know what I mean, you know.

 

Rik

[helene_t]

In Dutch the 3rd person plural dative pronoun "hun" is increasingly being used in nominative. This used to be a Rotterdam thing but it's spreading. However, it is used only to refer to humans (and sometimes animals). So the language has been enriched by a new pronoun - you can now see on the pronoun whether it refers to animate or inanimate subjects.

 

I never thought of "like" (or fvcking, or "you know") as sophistications but yes, the author has a point.

 

Languages have always been evolving. Probably they used to evolve faster than they do now where nation-states and the written language conserve them. I like the headline ("you've been verbed") from this article, by the way: http://moreintelligentlife.co.uk/content/ideas/anthony-gardner/youve-been-verbed

[y66]

Steven Pinker, in his book “The Language Instinct” (1994), points out that “easy conversion of nouns to verbs has been part of English grammar for centuries; it is one of the processes that make English English.” Elizabethan writers revelled in it: Shakespeare’s Duke of York, in “Richard II” (c1595), says “Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle”, and the 1552 Book of Common Prayer includes a service “commonly called the Churching of Women”.

 

I feel like I've just been water coolered.

[gwnn]

In Dutch the 3rd person plural dative pronoun "hun" is increasingly being used in nominative. This used to be a Rotterdam thing but it's spreading. However, it is used only to refer to humans (and sometimes animals). So the language has been enriched by a new pronoun - you can now see on the pronoun whether it refers to animate or inanimate subjects.

I don't know so much about Dutch dialects, much less about the Rotterdam one, but I found it funny that the campaign of VVD (biggest right-wing party) for the local elections in Rotterdam had the slogan "In Rotterdam we speak Dutch!" and there were some comments saying "well, actually you're mostly butchering it."

[Trinidad]

I don't know so much about Dutch dialects, much less about the Rotterdam one, but I found it funny that the campaign of VVD (biggest right-wing party) for the local elections in Rotterdam had the slogan "In Rotterdam we speak Dutch!" and there were some comments saying "well, actually you're mostly butchering it."

The first thing that came to my mind when I heard about the VVD slogan was "'k Tacht ut niet!". (Or as it would be pronounced in proper Dutch: "Ik dacht het niet!". This losely translates to "I don't think so, Tim!" (for those who remember "Home Improvement").

 

Rik

[Winstonm]

I am, like, down with that. Dig?