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A bar woman I know was similar, except she kept saying "You know wa' mean?". I felt like cracking her one.
I know a person like who always say’s “seriously” or “I’m serious” and like it drives me crazy, like seriously. Told him like he should have either been a used car salesmen or a lawyer like where he could use the saying regularly and like where it would at least be considered something expected and normal.
Well, just to be cranky.... I dislike intellectual speak where people use Henry James-like clauses - with perfect grammar and you can hear the commas placed perfectly around these in the convoluted, compound and complex sentences when a simple 'like' would have avoided the showy self-image touting and kept the conversation flowing along much better. May WF Buckley rest, insomuch as one can - 'can' qua 'be able to' - find rest in death, in peace.
Ha! The title of this thread actually has a complex grammatical structure too! All those commas! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! !!!!!! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Oh, no. That was economically done and, while clever, blunt. I did not mean grammatically correct sentences were bad. It is showboating by speaking like one writes, where sentences have asides - arguably like this one - that I am objecting to. I think some of this fluff carries as little weight as 'like'.
Did that one catch you? You don't write here like you speak like Henry James writes, though there are indications you could if you wanted to.
I don't know his work but many years ago when I admitted to colleagues that I wrote at all, the standard joke was that I "put on my telephone voice" for writing. But I don't, I write the way I speak - because it's the way I think.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Henry James wrote many sad and disturbing stories. But in a way, the things that happen to the characters are ridiculous, too - I mean ridiculous in the sense that the characters - although adults - did childish things or held childish attitudes. I think Henry James was one of the old-school writers who still had respect for their characters and readers, and used the overblown language as a means to prevent himself - and the readers - to fall into shallow and cheap sympathy or antipathy for the characters, and instead demanded a more well-thought out response on the reader's part. Yes, and this is almost a Henry James sentence!
Use of a form for a purpose. My problem with certain speakers who use this form is that they are conveying class or education levels or 'intelligence' levels, much as one dog will convey or try to convey dominance with a paw on the back of another dog while meeting, rather than conveying something that suits the content. To swing back to the topic, I think the use of like represents an anti-essentialist stance. Earlier generations were more likely to say 'you know' interrogatively. This was an expression of self-doubt and around the problems inherent in communication. The high potential for being trapped in untranslatable private worlds. Repeated use of 'like' is a nervous tick, caused by a great distrust for 'Being', monological interpretations and the clear existence of essences both internal and external. The 'user' may not be conscious of their philosophical stance, but they manifest the philosophical zeitgeist of their generation, with individual variance of course. Even the horrendous use of like in the OP article was expressing his doubt that he could be sure Love existed or that he could recognize it if he experienced it. He could only express a certain tentative similarity between what he experienced and what love is supposed to be like. Are they, like, waves or, like, particles? How did, like, the Aborigines in Australia, pre-European incursion, conceive of, like, Love? and so on. (OK, I am playing around, but maybe there is something in the above.) Good job!
I don't often use words like like, I like to liken words like like to similar or pertaining to or approximating. What I do like about using likenesses of like is to liken them to lichen. Spreading slowly like mossy/funguslike forms ( which of course, I like)( like them a lot) across the morass of sluglike humanity. Erleichda! ( ooh! I really like erleichda, like dat a lot dat erleichda) Apologies to Tom robbins.
Rather than conveying something that suits the content? But the author shapes the content, and the way he shapes it is part of the content of his text to begin with. I don't see how something could objectively "suit the content". Is there only one right way or only one objective way to tell the story of an unhappy love, for example? And what is wrong with conveying class or education levels or 'intelligence' levels? We all do this to a greater or lesser extent. Consider: A while back, I was at another forum, in a discussion on an interreligious topic, criticizing Christianity from a Buddhist perspective. I strictly used relatively simple language with no specific terminology to make my point. Another poster in that thread, a trained philosopher, used a formal and difficult language, full of specific terminology. He and I were in agreement, and expressed so; we basically had the same argument. But some of the other posters in that thread were very much upset over my posts, reported me and the thing even resulted in harsh criticism of me because I was supposedly "religiously intolerant". The other poster was either ignored or praised. By using a formal and difficult language, he successfully evaded the annoying attacks of those less educated, and was able to keep the discussion meaningful for himself, while I bitterly suffered the consequences of being understandable to all. Excellent. The use of the word "like" in the role of an interjection as a sign of moral relativism. Aye, fer shure. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
It seems the "Academy of Linguistic Awarness" is a fictional organization, but it exists - http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/Academy of Linguistic Awareness (fictional) Spelling "awareness" wrongly is probably an in-joke, or a play of words, as in "being in a state of war is awarness".
sure, if they modified the form to fit contents. My assertion is that the form is conveying a message about who the speaker is and who their listerners are or may be and is not being used to help understand the content. It is not exactly 'talking down' though it can be, but the idea of talking down to someone is similar. I can ask someone to perform some task at work, or I can ask someone while using my body language and tone to let them know I think they are a piece of shit. I think certain speakers, William F.B. for example, used both tone and syntax to convey messages that had little to do with the content of their speech. It was about who he was. We all do this and, of course, a factor in my having a problem with him is what that message was. But I also think he had little to no flexibility. Regardless of content he used similar syntax (and diction for that matter). I think it was central to his communication, rather than incidental. It was the goal and the content was much more incidental. I don't think one should hide their education and whatever shows through, shows through. Use the skills one has. One could argue that his choice of language implied transcendance of care or interest. (probably they simply didn't understand him or it seemed like he was not involved in some way, more playing with ideas) But your experience there leaves questions for me. Did his form actually convey his meanings well or did they simply miss it? And then also did yours? Leaving aside the issue of whether you should be reported for having been blunt, I am left wondering if the story might actually back up my claim. Perhaps his intellectual language was actually ill suited to the content and thus they missed a point that upset them. Which is different from saying your form was less suited to the content. Perhaps you communicated better in terms of conveying what you believe and meant. On another level it might have been a poor strategy since it meant you might not get to participate somewhere where you were not wanted. IOW, they understood. Thanks. I was just playing to start, but I did feel into the use. And it felt like it created relativism, and a resistance to making claims of truth.
But what if that message about who the speaker is and who their listeners are or may be is part of the content that the speaker wishes to convey to begin with? This wished content may be something else than what seems apparent from the eventual text. It's not like the author's intentions for writing the text are clearly stated in the text itself, nor can they be discovered beyond a shadow of a doubt. Note that many literary texts were written for a purpose - E.g. IRL, the author had a spat with other people, and he or she designed his text to address this spat, in ways suitable for that time/culture. Or the author was writing the text for the sake of entering a competition. Or to figure out his own problems. Etc. - In all such instances, conveying the message about who the speaker is and who their listeners are or may be played a more or less important part. I say we communicate primarily to manipulate, not to inform. We communicate primarily because we wish to make other people do or think something. And in this process, we use a variety of tools - be that information or attitude. Sure. Perhaps to you, it is important to let them know you think they are a piece of shit. When formalized, this gets to be called "literary, cultural and social criticism". Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! If anything, I think the problem was that I tried to make myself understandable to all - I consciously chose to use that level of language. I don't think the content was such that only one level of language would be appropriate for it, and another not. It was after all the topic of the morality of believing in the common conception of Jehovah - a topic discussed both by and with ten-year-olds as well as academics, and relevant to all. From what I could tell, the other posters simply did not understand what the other poster (who held the same line of argument as myself) was saying. The uneducated tend to have one of the two responses to someone more educated than themselves: they either blindly revere them, or criticize their intellectualism. (Although it probably played a part too that this other poster was a moderator ...) Relativism and the use of "like" probably go hand in hand, mutually strengthening eachother.
