[Edling] Why do people, like, say, ‘like’ so much?

[Kuha, Mai via Edling]

Hey everyone – in case any of you might find this useful in your classes, I made a little video about this popular concept of “filler”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2ScHfqFO_k

On a related point, I’m trying to gather the energy to craft a myth-debunking message to the father-son duo who make one of my favorite podcasts; in this recent episode, they responded to a viewer’s complaint that they say “sort of” and “kind of” too much:
https://www.rickhanson.net/being-well-podcast-changing-old-patterns-self-awareness-and-repairing-with-family/

Mai
--
Mai Kuha (she/her)
Department of English
Ball State University

On 5/23/22, 7:51 AM, "Edling on behalf of karen stanley via Edling" <edling-bounces at lists.mail.umbc.edu<mailto:edling-bounces at lists.mail.umbc.edu> on behalf of edling at lists.mail.umbc.edu<mailto:edling at lists.mail.umbc.edu>> wrote:

Just a side comment: At one point, when I was much (MUCH!!!) younger, the (a?) popular filler was, "you know." When I said it, my mother would say, "No, I don't know." So I just stopped talking every time she did it and walked away.

Karen Stanley


On Thursday, May 19, 2022, 05:52:06 PM EDT, Francis M. Hult via Edling <edling at lists.mail.umbc.edu> wrote:


The Guardian

Why do people, like, say, ‘like’ so much?

When Michael Gove was education secretary in 2014, he used an update to the national curriculum to require students to speak in “standard English”, even in informal settings, in all British schools. This reinforced the idea that there was only one right way to speak English. By 2019, one primary school head in Bradford, Christabel Shepherd, said she banned the word because, “When children are giving you an answer and they say, ‘Is it, like, when you’re, like…’ they haven’t actually made a sentence at all. They use the word all the time and we are trying to get rid of it.” Nick Gibb, then schools minister, praised the decision and said others should follow suit...

Carmen Fought, professor of linguistics at Pitzer College...adds that although the debate around “like” can be fun, when it comes to teachers punishing children for saying the word there are more serious impacts. “There’s nothing more non-conducive to learning and contrary to the purpose of education than constantly shutting kids down because of how they talk. If you want to teach a kid to practise having different language styles, that’s fine. But to demean and criticise the way someone speaks in any situation is very, very harmful.”

Full story:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/may/15/why-do-people-like-say-like-so-much-in-praise-of-an-underappreciated-word


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