So, basically, what happened was I was thinking about how disrespected I feel when I'm watching TV? A lot of those younger people, you know what I mean? -- well, they like use the word "like" all the time and it like makes me have an amazing headache?I mean, that's so messed up, you know? -- like the way people are always sticking the word "like" into like everything they try to say. I seen a guy on Judge Judy last week, I mean he was like "I was like smokin' a joint um, I mean, cigarette and I seen this awesome female go walkin' by. So I says 'Yo, mommy, you wanna..." But like Judge Judy wasn't tryin' to hear any of that, so she like ordered him to answer her without saying like, "like."
He was so not able to do that. I mean, he couldn't even get a whole sentence out without that word. Judge Judy wasn't feelin' that either, so like she starts hollerin' at the dude. His wifey, she got kinda like pissed, yaknowwhati'msayin, so she like starts answering for her man. That was freakin' awesome, 'cuz not too many females are gonna be lookin' out for a brotha.
OMG! WTF are these people talking about? And why do their parents allow them to continue to sound as if they have never been inside a classroom? Okay, okay, yes I do remember the words and phrases we used ad nauseum back when we weren't on Medicare. But, for the most part, those of us reading this post knew how to clean it up when speaking to an adult, especially an authority figure as daunting as a judge.
C'mon people. Like make your kids talk right. I mean, puhleeze!
Oh, sooooo FUNNY!!!!!!!! But oh, soooooooooo tragic! As a former high school teacher, I watched with dismay, the race to the bottom. Approval and accolades came to the students from their peers, not from "the establishment" (remember that term?) Speaking correctly was a sign of betrayal!
ReplyDeleteThanks for a great post!
Elora
Thanks, E. It was like that when I was in high school too, which is why I was ostracized by a lot of the African American students, while I mystified everybody else. Just didn't fit the mold, thank God.
ReplyDeleteExtremely entertaining, but tragically true. And I bet that guy has a job and people like us don't! Like, what's up with that?
ReplyDeleteStand by, tbish1. That's next in my crosshairs.
ReplyDeleteHere's the deal. A good percentage of children are raised by parents who believe in homework, live in neighborhoods that respect education and admire scholarship. They graduate a lot smarter than I did in the 1960s, a time when such students/people were not lightly labeled and dismissed as "elites." For more than half of the 20th century, people "looked up" to sophisticated individuals who knew how to dress for a night on the town and how to speak politely. But slowly, the '70s ushered out such attitudes and we became enchanted by grunge, cursing, drugs and T-shirts///
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