La Liseuse
And I was like what?

Is the English language in terminal decline? I did a little informal field study on a train coming from London yesterday. Listening to the conversation of a young office-worker on her journey home, I counted the ratio of 'real' words in her speech to the word 'like'. It was 5:1. Throughout the journey, this girl never uttered more than five words without a 'like' in between them. How depressing is that?

Aug 30, 2014 6:04 PM
Comments · 41
7

No, of course it isn't.

 

This is one of those perpetual feelings we have. Why, when I was a kid, children were respectful to their elders, young people dressed decently, and we had wonderful music, not this modern noise, it's just noise I tell you, noise! And by God I <em>put</em> the apostrophe in "Hallowe'en," the dieresis in "coöperative," and pronounced "vegetable" with four syllables or my old man took me into the woodshed and gave me a hiding. 

 

Not.

 

"The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. They spell it so abominably that no man can teach himself what it sounds like. It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him."--George Bernard Shaw, preface to <em>Pygmalion</em>.

 

'"Let the damned kid alone for a minute, will yeh, Mary? Yer allus poundin' 'im. When I come nights I can't git no rest 'cause yer allus poundin' a kid. Let up, d'yeh hear? Don't be allus poundin' a kid."'--Stephen Crane, <em>Maggie, A Girl of the Streets</em>.

 

"Well, we got in deep. He says that, he says that legally, yes he does. In, in, in the case of Haldeman, it'll I discuss--the Strachan things have been determined from a lot to do with, uh, with, uh, what Strachan says and what Kalmbach says, you know, uh, it's a 350 thing and th, that sort of thing."--Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States, Watergate transcript of a recorded conversation April 17, 1973.

August 31, 2014
7

English ???? It's NOT only english! It's ALL the languages I guess.

I hope really and sincerely it's not the case for ALL the young people but I may fear most of them are from a part I can call "lost generation".

I can't say in english but when I read some text in french from guys/girls of less than 20-25 years old, sometimes it's a real PAINFUL nitemare!

August 30, 2014
7

I think it's not at all depressing. She's young and, I presume, was speaking to a peer. The 'likes' in that context may carry no imformation, but they are not devoid of meaning. They indicate group membership, and membership of a group to which she belongs and you don't. It is a very important signal. I assume (or hope) that she's perfectly capable of code shifting and doesn't 'like' quite so much when communicating beyond her peer group. That would be depressing.

August 30, 2014
6

"Good English, well spoken and well written, will open more doors than a college degree. Bad English will slam doors you never knew existed"

 

-William Raspberry, columnist and author

September 6, 2014
6

Allow me to chime in with the "grumpy old people" here, as I know people my age, even older, who still talk and write the way these teenagers do. The thing is, it's not going to get better considering it is out of habit. And of course, as previously stated, this is not a problem exclusive to English language.

 

For those of you, English native speakers, take comfort in the fact that at least you only have to listen to your own language being butchered. Imagine living in a non English-speaking country. As if ruining our own language is not enough, apparently foreign language must be ruined as well. I have to hear some cringe-worthy phrases like:

 

"I wish I have something to do. I'm so boring"
"It's worthed"
"Thanks God it's Friday!"

 

And when I tried to point out why those sentences are wrong, I was deemed pedantic and those phrases continued to circulate. In the end I just gave up.

 

As pompous as this might sound, the fact is, everything that comes out of one's mouth and/or pen reflects whatever one has in one's brain. Therefore, unless you want to fight your way towards perfect utilization of a language, one 'like' at a time, might as well accept the fact that illiteracy exists. Just don't be a part of it.

September 6, 2014
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