“I’m like…”

My friend used to keep saying , " I'm on it , like a car bonnet " . Drove me mad . Obviously spending too much time with the Grandchildren . Later progressed to , D'ya know what I mean , after every sentence . 😫.

Cabbie21

Just to reassure people that I did not react in any way in her presence or afterwards about the way the girlfriend spoke. I was just a bit surprised, and venting a little here.
She seems to be a very pleasant girl and GS is happy with her.

Re your comment about athletes.
Amy Hunt obviously passed you by.
Not only did she win 4 golds last week, she’s also studying at Cambridge.
I wonder if she repeats to her friends some of the odd comments you make.

Estrellita

I have never heard anyone say 'I'm like'. Is it a regional thing?

I've never heard it either.

I also find people who start every sentence with ‘So’ quite annoying.
We stayed in a hotel recently and one of the young waitresses replied ‘perfect’ to everything we said. It really grated by the end of the week.

I work in education and I've noticed that while students say 'I'm like......' they don't actually write it in essays. It's just a passing fashion in speech. But, I hope it passes soon!

Sadgrandma

I also find people who start every sentence with ‘So’ quite annoying.
We stayed in a hotel recently and one of the young waitresses replied ‘perfect’ to everything we said. It really grated by the end of the week.

'So' and 'perfect'. More fashion-speak but also irritating if it's repeated mindlessly, argh.

Sadgrandma

I also find people who start every sentence with ‘So’ quite annoying.
We stayed in a hotel recently and one of the young waitresses replied ‘perfect’ to everything we said. It really grated by the end of the week.

Oh - me too . It seems to have eased off a bit now, thank goodness.

When I was teaching, it'd be around 2012/13, I was observed by an Ofsted inspector during a Y6 English lesson. During the Q+A part of the lesson quite a few of the children used the word 'like' when it wasn't required.

I remarked at one point that it really wasnt necessary to pepper our speech with 'like' and said 'I'd ban it, like, if I could!' - which did cause a few giggles as expected.

During the feedback after the lesson the Inspector who was very kind and non judgemental (which made a refreshing change😉) commenting only on what he had observed; stated that if he had his way he would definitely ban 'like' as he had witnessed so many lessons across England where it was used, as a sentence filler, or just habit, and he found it very frustrating I think.
My 16 year old granddaughter uses it, like, all the time, (see what I did there?) and occasionally I will interject with 'like what?'- she just laughs and carries on regardless!

Annoys me too but maybe slightly less so than the upward inflexion on last word which used to be such a fad.

I bet she doesn't even realise she's saying it and might be mortified to know. Not your place to say though so you'll just have to ignore it!
I had it when young people are giving menu choices etc and say "can I get?"
I always want to tell them that no, they cannot get it because they wouldn't be allowed to go into the kitchen, but if they would like it they could say "I would like" or "may/can I have...!"grrr!

Drives me nuts too , my kids 21 & 23 use it ALL the time ..its a generational thing ..... I have learnt to filter it out! 😉

Just thought I would drop by and give you all the bad news. This is 100% an Americanism.

I find this sort of thing very irritating. My pet hate is using So. At the beginning of every sentence. With a well rehearsed preconceived answer which they have read somewhere and not thought about at all..

I think it is an attempt to sound cool and smart to their friends. I would say it just comes across s being the opposite to me. As though they are robotic . Totally programmed with no opinions of their own.

Such is the power of the Digital Age Folks.

🤖???

I knew a woman who said "you know' in every sentence. It drove me crazy.

georgesgran. I’ve seen the Judge Judy episodes where she’s asked them to refrain from using ‘like’ and they just cannot do it. It’s so weird it just pops out every sentence. “Well like, I’m going home, like, and then I’m going to have a rest like, and then I ll listen to some music like.
Thank goodness none of my grandkids do it,it would drive me mad, like
‘So’ was my pet hate too, but that’s fizzled out I haven’t heard anyone do that for a while, like, (see what I did there… like)

I do think (from eavesdropping on the bus) that it's mostly girls who pepper their sentences liberally with 'like'. Boys, on the other hand (at least the fairly-posh ones round here in SW London) tend to take on a kind of faux West Indian patois as if they've just got off a plane from Jamaica. I find it quite funny - but if they then talk to an adult they re-code and sound 'normal' again.

Aldom

Cabbie21

I was shocked and disgusted by your inference that
'the successful GB athlete might be a bear of very little brain '.

This says a lot about you!

I thought so too.

"Like" drives me mad, too. Even my 12-year-old DGS does it. And English is not even his first language. I think I I'll get a pad and pencil out next time he does it and make a tick every time he says it.

Cossy

I loathe this widely used expression. My two DD sometimes do it.

I’ll ask them a question, eg what would you like for dinner, and their reply will be
“Like, toad in the hole”, my standard response is always, “ Like toad-in-the hole, or actual toad-in-the-hole”.

Drives them mad, but they get the point.

You ASK them what they would like for dinner??

Someone we know can be describing a situation, incident or event and keeps saying ‘and I turned round and said….’, ‘and he turned round and said’……..’ and she turned round and said’…..! Arrgghh! I want to ask him if anyone actually, physically turned round!

Cabbie, you are understandably annoyed by this girl saying "I'm like.." so frequently, and ask us why she can't speak properly.

I believe there are two different answers to this. The first being that she thinks she is speaking properly , because neither her parents nor her teachers have ever pointed out this irritating manerism and asked her to correct it.

We all have irritating habits, verbal or otherwise, and unless we are (made) aware of them will happily continue them.

The second reason for this sort of verbal trick is, in my opinion , that it is no longer considered polite or right to correct children too much. It is assumed that telling them flatly, as I was told at the age of six, to stop saying "dead nice" or "then I said" all the time does phsycological harm.

It may cause shyness or do serious harm, I suppose, but allowing this sort of annoying habit to go uncorrected often ends in people of all ages simply being dropped by their friends, and left wondering why on earth no-one seems to like them. This is harmful and hurtful too.

You can do one of two things here, either try not to be annoyed by this nice young woman's verbal tic, or mention how irritating this kind of thing is, perhaps using another expression as an example, then say, "I wonder if I have some similar unconcious habit that annoys people, and if so, if anyone would be willing to point it out to me".

This way, you are not directly correcting her, but discussing a common problem, which might make her aware of her own bad habit.

Dropped by friends for the way someone speaks??

Good grief - whatever happened to live and let live?

Some unbelievably condescending posts on the language of a teenage girl who has been observed at one meeting. A quick check on spelling would not go amiss.

Dear oh dear. There are two very different points.

1. "This speech pattern is associated with a particular social group/style.”
That's a sociolinguistic observation.
2. “People who use this speech pattern lack intelligence.”
That's a judgement about intelligence.

"I’m like…” can demonstrate something quite sophisticated linguistically. It allows someone to represent a reaction, attitude, emotional state, or approximate utterance, rather than merely reporting literal words.

I do think that when people try to see others as "less than" it's often insecurity on their part. Their own security may come from what they learned as "doing the right thing". A "Phone for the fish knives, Norman" moment.

I m just testing at the moment I can t post from my iPad just seeing if I can from my phone Carry on talking take no notice of me 🤣