# Do other languages have the equivalent of abusing "like" in every sentence? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 13, 2009, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-have-the-equivalent-of-abusing-like-in-every-sentence/496336 "2009-05-13T20:23:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-have-the-equivalent-of-abusing-like-in-every-sentence/496336/81 "2009-05-20T23:49:07Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Aren´t these terms actually place holders, rather than fillers? My bad. I misread the wikipedia article. I still stand by “what!” at the end of a sentence, though. ---
**Author:** ![Saami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/91b2a8/32.png) [@Saami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saami)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-have-the-equivalent-of-abusing-like-in-every-sentence/496336/82 "2009-05-21T13:31:23Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > In Malaysia and Singapore they use “lah” as a filler word which isn’t even a real word. They even use it when speaking English. “No problem, lah” No, these are not filler words. Not primarily because they are suffixes, as **Huerta88** points out, but because they definitely carry meaning. Specifically, the Singlish “lah” is an assertive end-of-sentence suffix which indicates that the speaker has a firm opinion and/or urges you to do something. Example: _Got food must eat, lah!_ [Got X must Y = common expression in Singlish; lah = indicates, in this case, that the speaker is urging an action] “Leh” is much less strong and usually indicates that the speaker wants you to relax and not cause trouble. It is sometimes used to convey a sligth uncertainty or questioning. Example: _We just talk cock at kopi tiam all night, no gambling leh._ [= We were just chatting at the local coffee shop, there was no gambling going on, don’t make a big deal out of it.] “Lor” can be used to convey disappointment or cynicism. Example: _I oreddy give him money, why he not puas? Some people so greedy one lor._ [oreddy = already; puas = Malay for satisfied; greedy one = greedy person; lor = implies disappointment] So, since those words carry meaning for Singlish speakers, they are per definition not filler words. Of course there are fillers in Singlish, but most of them are the same ones as in American English (“like” and so on). As for unique Singlish phrases, “repeat again” might perhaps qualify as a “padded” expression since one of the words are clearly redundant: “_I didn’t hear, can you repeat again?_” > [@Huerta88](#): > > I’ve also heard “mah” used by HKG girls in similar fashion. But unlike like, I don’t hear those words randomly sprinkled through sentences. That indicates a question (although as with a lot of conversational questions, the speaker might not expect or pause for an answer). You will hear “ma” or “meh” tacked onto a lot of questions in Hong Kong and Singapore, if you listen to locals speaking to eachother. Generally, Chinese English-speakers in both of those Chinese-dominated cities borrow heavily from Mandarin, Cantonese and Hokkien, both in terms of phrases, syntax, and emphasis. For questions, this can take the form of either appending the Chinese interrogative “ma” to the end of the sentence, or by asking questions in the form “X or not?” where X is a verb. Example: “_Your condo got swimming pool or not?_” That latter style of asking questions, I believe, is influenced by the Chinese “X bu X” where X is a verb and “bu” is a common negation (but I am not certain that that is where it came from). Of course, the moment they start speaking to someone they perceive to not be a local, they will drop these phrases and often switch syntax too. With many young Singaporeans, you will find that they speak a rather standard international English - until there is a group of them and they forget that you are amongst them… > [@Wakinyan](#): > > In Sweden young people has for decades been using the odd _bá_ word, which always has had annoyed elder people, because the is no such word. Are you sure that it is not a real word? I have always assumed that “ba” was an abbreviation of the word “bara” (=just, only), which would make sense given the way that the word often is used (“_Å han ba gick!_” = “_And he just left!_”). You are right that sometimes “ba” is used without any accompanying verb, but usually the speaker is indicating some kind of action through gestures or mimicky, or it is clear that some kind of action is implied… So I do think that “ba” = “bara”. Anyhow, one gold nugget is the combination “ba va” or even better “ba va liksom”. Three filler words in a row, guaranteed to grate on the nerves of any Swede of middle age or older 😛 ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-have-the-equivalent-of-abusing-like-in-every-sentence/496336/83 "2009-05-21T17:43:27Z")
> [@FallenAngel](#): > > Another Montrealism I’ve encountered is Francophones using, “Lo,” (or, “le,” I honestly don’t know which) when speaking English. “I went to the bank, lo, and ran into Monique there, lo. She had gone to the store, lo, and then we had dinner, lo.” > > So, I guess you’d call that a filler word for Franglais? I actually haven’t noticed that, but most Franglais speakers I know are Anglophones speaking French, not the other way around. I’ll try and pay more attention, perhaps I’ll notice it. In my experience, the people more likely to use “là” in French are either from the Saguenay region, or Acadian, but they all speak kind of weirdly anyways 😉 For no reason other than curiosity, I watched the YouTube videos of Richard Zednik’s press conference after his neck got sliced open by a teammate’s skate last year. I got about 4 minutes in before I started hearing nothing but his constant use of “you know?”. In his defense, the guy isn’t a native English speaker and probably learned his English in hockey locker rooms, so descriptive words of what it was like to nearly die by having your neck sliced open couldn’t really be expected to come naturally to him, so “you know,” the journalists could just fill in the blank! It was irritating, so I gave up on the videos! ---
**Author:** ![diablevert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@diablevert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diablevert)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-have-the-equivalent-of-abusing-like-in-every-sentence/496336/84 "2009-05-21T22:39:44Z")
> [@](#): > > I often hear people say something like “I have like, a dog,” to which I usually respond, “‘Like’ a dog? What’s like a dog? A cat?” That seems like kind of a dick move to me. Language has changed, and the word “like” now has many widely accepted usages and functions beyond being an adjective meaning “similar to.” Like can be a pause-marker, equivalent to “um,” and it can be a verb denoting “said/took the attitude (that).” You can’t Henry Higgins the meaning back into the bottle — as this thread proves, pretty much every language has equivalent words. It is definitely irritating when someone uses “um” every other word. But that’s irritating if they use “um,” or “uh” or “er” or “eh” or “em.” Not to be a complete descriptivist — “Impacted” and “Irregardless” I find distateful myself. But those battles are lost, and “like” is too. These usages aren’t wrong anymore. Maybe it’ll fade, though. Irish characters in 19th century novels often say “whist;” you don’t seem to hear that anymore. ---
**Author:** ![boofy\_bloke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@boofy\_bloke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boofy_bloke)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-have-the-equivalent-of-abusing-like-in-every-sentence/496336/85 "2009-05-22T06:53:21Z")
Do all you foreign persons use Goo-goo gaa-gaa baby talk when talking to babies like we British (colonials)? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-have-the-equivalent-of-abusing-like-in-every-sentence/496336/86 "2009-05-22T07:21:54Z")
> [@boofy\_bloke](#): > > Do all you foreign persons use Goo-goo gaa-gaa baby talk when talking to babies like we British (colonials)? 😉 Well, that’s probably better the subject of another thread, but, yes. I certainly do, when I speak to my son in French and in Japanese, there’s an established vocabulary of “baby words,” to be used by and when speaking to young children. ---
**Author:** ![Bad\_Astronaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Bad\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bad_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-have-the-equivalent-of-abusing-like-in-every-sentence/496336/87 "2009-05-25T22:17:38Z")
> [@jormundgondir](#): > > Living in California, which I suspect is sort of a Tigris-Euphrates region for the word “like,” I think its meaning can’t be distilled that simply, and it fills in for many things. > > I was recently on a train between San Francisco and Berkeley, sitting near a couple of young women who were evidently students at UC Berkeley, and after a couple of minutes I couldn’t help but try to count their use of the word: the more talkative one used it 152 times over 18 minutes. The most fascinating thing was that her pal was using a very abbreviated “like” as an interjection, where you might say “mm hmm” or “uh-huh” or “yeah…” It was hard to catch at first because it was so fast, almost just “l’k,” kind of a guttural cluck of agreement. > > … I’m skeptical about the interjections, mainly because it makes no sense. Is it possible that the quiet one was starting to say something and kept being interrupted by the talkative one? Or that she was just grunting or saying ‘yup’ or something and your ‘like’ detectors got a little hyperactive? And yes, all the other uses of the word do make sense and sound quite natural to me. I have to make a concerted effort just to limit the frequency of ‘like’ in my normal speech. I’m highly educated and male, so it’s actually quite annoying to me that I do this. Edit: I’m not from Cali by the way. In fact I’m Canadian. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-languages-have-the-equivalent-of-abusing-like-in-every-sentence/496336.md?page=4)