Treating the Likes and Umms

This is probably gonna come off as an 'old man on a porch with a crooked cane' style of post but it's just something I thought about today so here tis:

I say 'like' alot. I probably umm up the works more than I should. I definitely throw out a good share of 'yknows' to fill in the blanks when I can't think of something better. They all run rampant through my everyday conversation. I am contaminated with 'likes' especially. And it's probably a permanent affliction.

But I'm thinking this problem might be getting generationally worse. When I hear kids on the subway talking I'm sort of like amazed at how like umm and yknowed up they are. I think part of the problem might be that this is the first generation that has teachers that like umm like yknow in the classroom. Teaching with yknows and likes. So I'm thinking it might be time to accept the reality we might want to deal with this situation as an actual situation.

Personally, I don't really care if a kid speaks proper english when they're out with their friends or whatever hanging out or like whatever. Who cares? Nobody should. They can like umm like till the cows come home. That's their business. And I'm the last person to lecture about talking proper english as I ain't barely know how anyhow--- but I think our educational system should start teaching Proper Conversational English as an actual second language.

Here's the thing. I can only speak one language (and maybe enough French to get me to the hospital-- as long as I was bleeding from my head) but from what I know about bi-lingual people. There's like a switch they can flip in their heads to go back and forth with their languages. Depending on who they're talking to. This one. Or that one. So why shouldn't people be taught how to do that with straight up English. Like if they're meeting their girlfriends parents for the first time. Or job interviewing. Or at a fancy dinner. And they want to make sure they come across ok and not like umm like yknow at that occasion...

Sure, a kid can stand in front of a class and read off a piece of paper. Be taught and understand grammar. Prepare a speech and deliver it. But the practice of weeding likes and umms from everyday conversation isn't something that's addressed and practiced. Why not? It's obviously like a problem or whatever. I mean if someone flagged all the likes I use in a day it would probably spill into three figures. If I had a switch in my head to flip me away from sounding like... umm... like that-- I'd wanna flip it sometimes!

Wouldn't it be a valuable skill? Sure as hell more valuable than stupid algebra...

ok bye!

tOdd

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