<p>Anyone else find "like" to be extremely annoying, especially when used by students in class?</p>
<p>I was in the library today and this girl was speaking on the phone. It annoyed me enough that she was speaking so loudly, but even more so that she kept using "like".</p>
<p>I think there should be a campaign to stop using the word so much. It's destroying the English language... or the American English language... which doesn't exactly have a good rep anyway.</p>
<p>I like the idea :p</p>
<p>Was this girl, like, attractive?</p>
<p>Like, it was bad idea to post stuff like this cuz, like, you'll only get responses like this. :P</p>
<p>Like yeah, it kinda like makes you sound like dumb, ya know?</p>
<p>She only uses "like" once, but you get the idea... YouTube</a> - Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina answers a question</p>
<p>I think you, like, need to, like, chillax and just, like, understand that the English language is like, changing ;/</p>
<p>In all seriousness, I don't think it can be stopped. In this country, we've taken English and degraded it into a new language - I call it "American." Unfortunately, not enough people care about the change to do something about it.</p>
<p>I think it's a pretty stuck up attitude to look at American English as a degraded version of British English. </p>
<p>In fact, linguists often look at American English as superior to British English because of a more frequent use of the subjunctive in American English, among other things.</p>
<p>i've had professors tell me the same thing - we don't speak english, we speak american.</p>
<p>the word 'like' can be annoying. however it's a sign that the person doesn't have their thoughts together. thus by using the word 'like' they buy themselves sometime to put together their thoughts. i know this because at work something similar was brought up. i don't use 'like' but i used to constantly stop midsentence and say 'ummm'. that can be annoying. you just have to be conscious about things like that. everyone does it at one point or another.</p>
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I think it's a pretty stuck up attitude to look at American English as a degraded version of British English.</p>
<p>In fact, linguists often look at American English as superior to British English because of a more frequent use of the subjunctive in American English, among other things.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>My naming the English we casually speak in the US nowadays "American" was by no means meant to imply a comparison to British English. I have no problem with the "traditional" American English; it's just that the slang used nowadays (both in and out of the US) has degraded the language.</p>
<p>
[quote]
the word 'like' can be annoying. however it's a sign that the person doesn't have their thoughts together.
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</p>
<p>I don't think that's true 100% of the time. A lot of the times here (Southern California), it's just a way we talk informally with our friends. Most of the time, when we give presentations or speeches, we don't say it as much. But when we're with friends, most of us don't even know we're doing it until we play that game where you're not allowed to say it. I think it's definitely a regional thing sometimes.</p>
<p>I might rather hear like then a northeastern accent.</p>
<p>what's wrong with a northeastern accent?</p>
<p>a new jersey accent?</p>
<p>a new jersey accent is exactly that. there is no such thing as a northeast accent.</p>
<p>The word "like" is used especially by teenage girls all over the country. I think it may vary among men by region, but females everywhere(at least the less intelligent ones) tend to use it a lot, regardless of region.</p>
<p>It's hard not to pick it up when everyone around you is saying it. It's just a dialect thing-- no big deal.</p>
<p>well it annoys me when people use it over 10 times in their paragraph. I had a classmate like that back in junior high and the teacher told her "keep your words short please." She keep adding like to every few words she says.</p>
<p>It's not just American. Britain's got it, Australia's got it, New Zealand, the entire English-speaking population. It may have started and be more prominent in America, but it's certainly not just an "American" thing.</p>
<p>I hate it too, annoys me a lot.</p>