Like, so lost in translation
Maybe it was being raised by a tiger mom who was always very anal about my public appearance–how I dressed, behaved, spoke.
Maybe I’m just being incredibly petty about this, since there are other, bigger things happening out there, but at the end of the day you and I will still be standing, albeit scratching our heads and wondering, So what were they trying to say?
We all know to whom I am referring: the people who cannot speak English properly and communicate what they want succinctly. And I’m not referring to those whose first language isn’t English. I’m talking about the “likers” of the world.
We know the culprits. Often they are friends or co-workers. The pillars of eloquence who say to you, “So, like, you know that paper we had to write? Like, the one for, like, that one teacher dude/chick? Like, IDK what we’re s’posed to, you know, write about. Like, where should I start like, you know, like?”
I remember going to graduation parties and meeting pretty much everyone’s folks. One lady, a classmate’s mother, stands out in my mind. She was not only very kind, but spoke intelligently and clearly, and so did her husband. Her daughter, with whom I graduated and also ranked higher than I did, regularly spoke in the way I just described. It still makes me wonder how the parents can know how to speak, but their son or daughter can’t even get out what they want for breakfast without confusing everyone.
I don’t think I was the only one with a tiger mom who told her, “Allison, you can be many things in life, but not a dummy. And don’t speak like one either. It just makes you sound stupid.”
Aside from the fact that the likers are hard to understand and quite distracting in their speech, could you imagine a world in which people who are meant to be the professionals, whom you and I rely upon, speak in this way? Imagine your family doctor telling you, “Like, we ran these tests, you know? And, like, we found this, like, abnormal cell like thing. I don’t know what it is, but, like, it kinda looks like cancer, you know? You might wanna, you know, like, start getting some like radiation for that?”
Or say you’re sitting in the student center near a television. The local news breaks, and the anchor says, “This just in, like, there’s a, like, gun dude who’s, like, crazy running the toward UIndy campus. He’s dangerous, you know? Like, escaped convict crazy, like Charles What’s-His-Face, the guy with the Nazi sign on his like forehead. Like, you all better haul, like, butt outta there and call the, like, police people, you know?”
I’m the kind of person who would be counting on my fingers the number of times the anchor said “like” and wouldn’t calculate it was nine likes until after the stray bullet had already penetrated my pancreas.
I think many of you see my point, as outrageous as my examples are. Parents and teachers need to demonstrate to these kids how to speak properly.
Trust me: if you go into a boss talking this way and expecting a job, you haven’t a chance of getting it, especially if the candidate before or after you speaks well. Communication, my friends, is always key, and way too valuable to not know how to do effectively.
Like, you know what I’m sayin’?
