[Magdalen] Like I Was Puzzled.

[Jon Egger]

What really irks me is when people (our President included) use the horrid
Midwestern pronunciation of "tuh" instead of 'to', as in "I went tuh the
store".....arrrrgh!!!

+++
Grace & peace,
jon


On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 2:56 PM, Sally Davies <sally.davies at gmail.com> wrote:

> Pervasive here, too. This habit started, I guess, with kids and teenagers
> but has spread to older generations and from wherever it originated
> (California? London?) to a wide variety of English speaking contexts.
>
> The usual form here is "I was like...".
>
> I think that people have taken to this expression because it is somewhat
> distancing and seems not to commit one to a truth position. I was "like
> that" - but I wasn't "that".  Maybe it's too much of a stretch to conclude
> something about the culture in which such tentative self-positioning seems
> to thrive...?
>
> "After that, I replied...", or "and then, I did X"  sounds not only more
> formal but more documentary! The "I was like" OTOH, avoids the bother of
> finding the right verb. It sets up a sentence (if one could call it that)
> which could go anywhere. I could be, like, saying something, or it's like I
> could have done something, or maybe I could even be, like so wasted I can't
> actually recall what I was like.
>
> And sad/denialist as it may be, when you hang around with kids enough of
> the time, you do, like, start borrowing their expressions in
> self-defence...
>
> Language evolves...or maybe unravels...
>
> Sally D
>
> On Wednesday, 3 December 2014, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <
> magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:
>
> >
> > I've had several people visiting my home recently whose every other
> > sentence
> > begins with "Like I was...." of some such.  These were not teenagers,
> but
> > adults in their 40's and 50's.
> >
> > I've been aware of this rage for describing usually something in the
> past
> > with descriptions beginning with "Like", but I wasn't aware such  usage
> > has crept so far into the general USA population.  I have no clue  about
> > this
> > phenomenon in other English speaking areas of the world.
> >
> > This "like" business has become chronic and pervasive in the USA, and
> > my question is about whether this is a fad, or marks  a chronic change
> > in spoken English.  If it is long term, it demonstrates a  trivialization
> > of
> > the language IMHO.
> >
> > Anyone have any thoughts about this "like" usage and predictions  about
> > its continued usage?
> >
> >
> > David S.
> >
>