"Liketalk" is the lingua franca of a new generation. As you listen on the street corner or in your place of work or in the halls of the high school, it is perfectly obvious that the very sound and essence of English has shifted in the last few years. A whole cluster or phrases are used because they make the likeaholic feel like they fit in; that they're youthful -- that they're not being conventional, boring older people.
But if you really listen, it becomes clear that the hipness factor has become completely hollow. Likeaholics don't hear the tedium and unimaginativeness of their habitual way of speaking. The sound of it can be compared to eating a meal:
Imagine you've ordered a four-course dinner at a fine restaurant...Ceasar salad with peppercorn, an elegant French steak dish, rice pilaf with almonds and scallions, a cranberry mousse for dessert. That's the English language, in all of its internationalism, its variety and flavor. Now take two handfuls of little lemon jelly beans and sprinkle them over every dish. THAT'S "liketalk". In every mouthful, lemon candy
4 comments:
"like" is to the 90s, what "really" is to today.
i've found that almost everyone has a certain word or phrase that they habitually use... it's usually so subconscious though, that the individual doesn't even realize what they're saying until someone points it out to them.
Liketalk is some crazy shit: It's usage is stupifyingly ubiquitous across a dizzying spectrum of social classes, geographies, and age brackets - and even in written English, which is something else altogether entirely concerning. Sadly, the kinder, gentler society in which we live prohibits the perceived elitist behavior of correcting someone else's broke-ass English, and has consumed us in a race to the bottom whereupon we are reduced to a nation of Liketalking nitwits.
God help us; this is why the Chinese are winning.
Ah, just as we were discussing at that meet up last Thursday. Gotta admit, though I try avoiding it, I often find myself ensnared in the pincers of "like talk." Perhaps the best cure is being more confident in what you say, instead of throwing random words and phrases together.
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