Is this, like, a handicap?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Mrs. J. and I were eating out last night when I became aware of the conversation coming from a woman who was part of the group of early 20-somethings at the adjoining table.

It was hard not to notice, for in the first place she had one of those acetylene torch-cutting soprano voices*. In addition, she had a severe case of “like-a-tosis”.

“She was, like, going on about her boyfriend, like how he was, like, driving her crazy you know?”

Yes, she had a touch of the "you know"s as well, but it was, like, hard to notice with all the "like"s.

I bet Mrs. J. that this woman would not be able to go a dozen words without interjecting “like”. I won the bet.

Now I know that this verbal tic is nothing new and considerably predates the days of the Valley Girl stereotype. It’s possible that otherwise she is a brilliant conversationalist. Well, strike that. She might however have considerable talents in some sphere, which brings up a question.

Will conversing like this prove a problem when she interviews for graduate school or a good job**? Would you want to hire such a person knowing that she might end up in the cubicle next to yours and, like, make lots of phone calls?

Will this handicap, if it is one, impede her ability to find success in life?

*Jackmannii’s First Law of Dining Out states that the person at an adjoining table furnishing the most obnoxious conversation (on cellphone or otherwise) will have the loudest voice in the group.
Jackmannii’s Second Law of Dining Out states that the amount of time taken by another party to linger over the dregs of their meal and gradually pull themselves together to make an exit, is directly proportional to how annoying they and their kids have been to the other patrons.

**I’m guessing that this would not be a problem if she enters a career in spamming for, like, discount Vi@gra.

2

Is it a handicap like autism or tourettes? No.

Will speaking like an annoying 14 year old hinder her ability to get a job? Depends. Does she do it all the time?

My normal conversational shit is like…yuhknow…whatever… But when I’m speaking in a professional environment, I pay much greater attention to my vocabulary, diction and tone. Maybe this girl is the same way.

3

Me too. People should bear in mind that people they meet who speak ‘professionally’ might just also have their work-mode switched on. Lots of us speak dreadfully when given the chance.

4

Fuck that shit.

5

I curse like a sailor outside of work but inside I am known as a prude about language. There’s inside professional voice and there’s outside fun voice. Although I can think of one regrettable example where the two are the same, and I find myself wishing I could eavesdrop on her interviews and see how she comes across.

6

I recently had to transcribe a deposition of a woman with a quite senior position in a major U.S. corporation, whose speech was such a collection of “like,” “you know,” and “I mean” that it was hard to even make sense of it. Presumably she’s good at her job, and it doesn’t involve communication. I certainly hope so because she couldn’t communicate her way out of a paper bag!

So to answer the OP, it seems like it should be a handicap, but apparently it’s not always.

7

Having grown up in the era of Valley Girl, in So Cal, the *land * of Valley Girls, I remember peppering my speech with “likes” and “ya knows”. Somewhere around thirteen or fourteen my mom started pointing it out. Mocking me, you could almost say. It did help me break the habit and later strive to lose any trace of a So Cal accent (duuuuuude, I’m still working on it, mmmmkay!). Now it sounds as if every teen and twenty-something I encounter came from the valley. I know I had to make a conscious effort to speak that way and an even more concerted one to stop speaking that way, so I’m not sure it’s something one slips in and out of. And no, I would never hire someone who speaks that way.

8

I hope so. Given the extent of her affliction, however, I suspect that the strain of like, attempting to speak without dropping “like” into the conversation would render her dumb.

I had what I remember as a mild case of the “you knows” as a teen. I grew out of it with the help of being embarassed by my mother, who was death on a variety of things including chewed fingernails and bad posture. If she had been placed in charge of hiring at a major corporation there would have been a hellacious spike in unemployment.

9

Disability, to me, connotes something that cannot be changed. Worked around, compensated for, or masked with medication, yes, but it in and of itself cannot be done away with.

An over reliance on verbal “fillers” is a bad habit. Not, in my opinion, a disability. Having done so myself I know that it’s challenging, but one can certainly go from speaking like that to a more fluent manner. It’s something that may or may not hold you back, but if it does, it’s entirely your fault.

10

I once transcribed a speech by a guy named Earl Butz who was then (I think) the US Sec. of Agriculture. Anyway he was the Secretary of something. Of course I edited out the ums and ahs and you knows and the likes and other verbal tics I have since forgotten. Once those were all gone, it was rather pathetically obvious that while there was a coherent thought or two, there weren’t enough of them all strung together to amount to anything, especially a keynote speech. Only rarely was there an actual sentence.

Yet people who merely listened to the speech apparently thought the man said something.

11

Same here. In my normal at home or out with friends voice, I occasionally swear like a carnival worker at 8am with no coffee. At work, however, I am an elementary school librarian, and pepper my language with the appropriate amount of “Well, my stars!” and “Oh my goodness!” and “You don’t say!?”

Little Bobby brings his book in to return. It’s covered in oatmeal. My lovely, librarian voice says, “My goodness, Little Bobby! This book is positively crusty with oatmeal! How on earth did that happen?”
The normal me voice, silent inside my head, says Jesus Fucking Christ. How the hell did this kid get oatmeal inside the goddamned book?
Being able to go from full-bore truck driver swearing to June Cleaver-style pseudoexclamations and back again is a valuable form of code switching.

P.S. I don’t know if I’d hire the chick or not. Probably not, as I’d be deep in the throes of an 80s flashback. I’d be too busy searching for some leg warmers.

12

It would make it hard for me to, like, being around her.

Sure, it’s some kind of handicap, though not an official one with ADA status. Being bad at judging vertical, not having perfect pitch, being paraplegic, and being confused about the metric systems are all handicaps of various size. And it depends on context. I don’t see how being paraplegic would interfere with performing as a Doper, but having a tendency to hit Caps Lock when you’re trying to type an “a” would.

13

One of my girlfriends is a junior high teacher. She says its really difficult to learn that certain words are not to be said…and it isn’t just George Carlin’s list. “That sucks” is inappropriate for teaching…

(I cannot, in my wildest dreams, imagine her saying “oh, my stars.”)

14

I am going to make a concerted effort to use that as frequently as I can now. There is no reason for an expression like that to be so neglected.

15

I’m so used to “work/school mode = no swearing and polite diction” that I rarely screw up and use English swear words at work. It initially got me a reputation as someone who doesn’t swear and “wouldn’t swear” among most of my coworkers. However, one morning I messed up while having a casual breakfast break and said [sub]fuck[/sub] under my breath while trying to find the right word for something I was describing. You would not believe how many shocked faces (not of horror, but just surprised amusement) met mine when I looked up. It wasn’t until around then that I had figured out that this particular environment was casual enough that me swearing a couple of times during these informal breakfast breaks was acceptable with most of the staff.

I developed quite a few non-swearing filler words for a while, though. One of them in particular that I used in high school was “expletive,” as, technically, I was not swearing. However, these days I just avoid swearing or using word fillers if at all possible. I do still revert to using “scheisse” on occasion as my “not swearing in English” word filler.

Now, to answer the OP, I probably would not hire someone who used “like” that often, as I was chided as a young teen for my overuse of “like” and “you know.”

16

I have a boss. who speaks… in sentence . frag
ments

some times he just changes subjects… like when he was boating in the saskatewan river
and then goes back
to talking
about that stuff we talked about last month

His written prose is spotless, and erudite; containing excellent punctuation, form and even style.

his phone message style… wanders and seems senile (can I mention my grandchildren?)… be at the meeting we talked about… or did I mention it? early… at least 1/2 hr… my boat needs a paint job… know anyone? there is a seating arrangemnt. Oh, we changed the address… its at the other place… I think a nice teal might work

I WISH it was just “likes” and “you knows” and “uhhhs”

regards
FML

17

I’m actually in graduate school with a young woman who cannot utter three consecutive words without inserting “y’know”. On the other hand, the papers she posts are insightful, crisp, dynamic and, y’know, pretty damn good. I wish I could write like she can.

18

But, didn’t you find that momentary lapse really got their attention? I use expletives in my speech as I use Tabasco™ in cooking. When I do, they actually have impact.

To the OP, I wouldn’t hire such a person, because I would eventually have to find a place to hide the body. :smiley: