AIBU to detest kids saying 'like' 4 times per sentence?

[Snidpan]

or to put it into youth speak:
"Like: when do - like - kids, stop like...saying "like", you know, 4 times per, like, sentence?"

When do they, like, grow out of it?

This is one thing I was complemented on during my teaching practice, saying to students, "That's nearly the right answer, but it isn't 'like x' it actually is 'x'".

After a month or so I would get, "Is it, like, I mean is it x?"

Don't mind it. But I am so often at a loss to understand what my eldest, and increasingly my middle child, have said to me. I don't speak youth any more and that makes me sad because it just highlights that I am olllllllllld.

I do get twitchy when people fill their conversation with "and I turned around and said, and then she turned around and said, so I turned around and said..."

I have a 'slightly pompous, slightly full of himself' friend, 54yrs, who adds 'obviously' into sentences. It's a very telesales thing, as is saying 'yourself', instead of 'you', as if that makes it a more official term.
Sales: "Is that something that yourself would be interested in?"
Me: "no, I'm afraid myself would not be interested, thankyourself"

Starting a sentence with "I won't lie", as if they're going to say something really contentious or controversial.

Adding 'to be fair' at the end of a sentence, to sound like they have considered every important element of the subject, and you may not like what they have to say...

Me: "What time are you getting the bus after school?"
Child: " Well, I can't lie: probably 4pm, to be fair"

Sounds like the most dramatic, life-changing sentence, even though it only references a bus timetable

To the adults who maintain they haven't grown out of it - I'm fairly sure you don't 'like' at the same rate that teens do. 'Like' is a valid word, not too bad to have one in the middle of the sentence, but to hear two 19 college girls chatting can be truly astonishing

It depends if the person's doing it for effect or because they lack confidence and it's a bit of verbal padding similar to err and umm. I still say it sometimes and I'm over 50. From your description he sounds a bit shy (hiding behind a fringe).

We all did it as teenagers and it went away. There's some really interesting research as to why young people do it.

@Northernsoullover

It was always 'turned around and said' when I was in my youth. If you were telling someone about your day you would say ''so Mr Smith turned around and said, ''please pay attention' so I turned around and said 'I was paying attention' then he turned around and said 'Northern you clearly weren't'" we must have been pivoting around like rotisserie chickens in the olden days

I remember that phrase well but you've got me giggling at 'pivoting around like rotisserie chickens'

Mutunus
And starting every reply with So

‘You know’ is another irritating addition to speech.

‘So I told her that it wasn’t like, you know, fair to you know, do that’

Access any Mark Ronson interview footage to get this in full effect. Every other word is 'like'. I don't think he realises he's doing it.

It is annoying hopefully they'll grow out of it. I overheard my niece's friend telling her about a conversation with some boy she said "he goes" then I goes" then he goes. Looks like goes has replaced said.

@PotholePalace

It depends if the person's doing it for effect or because they lack confidence and it's a bit of verbal padding similar to err and umm. I still say it sometimes and I'm over 50. From your description he sounds a bit shy (hiding behind a fringe).

well that's ONE teen sorted. :)

I said pardon, he repeated it word for word, so it's not as if the 'likes' were to to cover up pauses whilst he worked out what words he needed. He genuinely thought that was how a sentence was constructed.

Maybe he was too upset by your déclassé use of the word pardon to get his sentence construction right.

They don't grow out of it. If left, they will continue to do it, especially if others around them continue. If others around them stop, it may eventually drop off for the most part.

The only way to get them to stop is to pick it up and have them repeat their sentence without it. Speech is learnt and, over time, they will eliminate it from their typical speech patterns.

Our Year Six children start like this every year but, by Christmas, it's typically gone.

I get the rage with Johnson's (and many others) inability to pronounce the word "to", preferring the abridged version - t'

Hate listening to him anyway but that makes me cringe.

@Iamnotthe1

They don't grow out of it. If left, they will continue to do it, especially if others around them continue. If others around them stop, it may eventually drop off for the most part.

The only way to get them to stop is to pick it up and have them repeat their sentence without it. Speech is learnt and, over time, they will eliminate it from their typical speech patterns.

Our Year Six children start like this every year but, by Christmas, it's typically gone.

that sounds like a start. It's mainly students, university kids who earnestly inject every sentence with several 'likes' that I've noticed

I had to play recordings back to students who have failed speaking and listening assessments because of the crazy amounts of 'likes' and 'know what I means'. It renders them incomprehensible.

Oh and it's nothing to do with having contempt for them. All about teaching them to communicate like sensible adults in the workplace.

@Northernsoullover

It was always 'turned around and said' when I was in my youth. If you were telling someone about your day you would say ''so Mr Smith turned around and said, ''please pay attention' so I turned around and said 'I was paying attention' then he turned around and said 'Northern you clearly weren't'" we must have been pivoting around like rotisserie chickens in the olden days

I was going to say this, I'd be travel sick with all that spinning around. Can you imagine how odd they would look if they turned every time they said it!

@Northernsoullover

It was always 'turned around and said' when I was in my youth. If you were telling someone about your day you would say ''so Mr Smith turned around and said, ''please pay attention' so I turned around and said 'I was paying attention' then he turned around and said 'Northern you clearly weren't'" we must have been pivoting around like rotisserie chickens in the olden days

😂😂😂

There was a young woman on the train recently who said dya know worr I mean at least once during and at the end of every single sentence. I don't know how I stopped myself from screaming at her, you're not talking about fucking astrophysics, so, yes, everyone knows exactly what you fucking mean. Oh how I wanted to.

I find these comments really sad and smug. I wonder why people struggle with relating to teenagers and children so much if they are so contemptuous of them?

Nobody is contemptuous of the kids themselves, but you are allowed to be irritated by an annoying habit that a particular person or age/'class' of person tends to display.

I blame Friends for it - that would explain the 30-somethings who still do it; and I believe it's had a massive resurgence in popularity amongst those who weren't even born when it finished.

Sometimes, it's just like a personal verbal tic (possibly nervousness?) that people develop for whatever reason, and can be individual to them. I once worked with a man who constantly interspersed his sentences with 'sort of' and 'in terms of', and not even in a context where you'd normally use them. "I was sort of wondering in terms of if you had sort of finished the sort of accounts for the month and thinking in terms of maybe we could sort of arrange a sort of meeting to sort of discuss the sort of overall figures". He was high up in the company and not particularly shy - I suppose it was just his 'thing' for whatever reason.

Still, as irritating as it is, I would take endless 'likes', 'literallys', 'innits' and 'sort ofs' any time over the people who pepper their sentences with the F-word. By all means swear for emphasis or to express anger/strength of opinion or feeling, but it just becomes utterly meaningless when it's every other word. I wonder how they manage with job interviews?

I know I am very childish, but like the sensible friend in the Maleficent costume post upthread, I am always so tempted to jump right in and sing 'Briiiiiiiight eyes!' at the top of my voice whenever somebody invokes an unnecessary 'turned around' - every single time they do it

you forgot to mention "likes" interspersed with "innits"

I had a student who used to end every sentence with "innit". This usually prompted one of his peers to ask "Isn't it what?"

Despite looking baffled by the question at first, he did eventually stop the innits.

I haven't heard it used at all for a while though, so I thought it had died out.

@Snidpan

I have a 'slightly pompous, slightly full of himself' friend, 54yrs, who adds 'obviously' into sentences. It's a very telesales thing, as is saying 'yourself', instead of 'you', as if that makes it a more official term. Sales: "Is that something that yourself would be interested in?" Me: "no, I'm afraid myself would not be interested, thankyourself"

Funny you should say that. The creepiest overuse of 'obviously' I ever heard was by murderer Nathan Matthews, who killed his step-sister Beck Watts.

From 3 mins 50 secs onward, in his police interview.