Unnecessary “fillers” in our speech. I’d rather have “like” than up-talking, though (if we had to choose one, that is). Ewwww, up-talking. Then again, a combination of the two would render me homicidal maniac.
yes, colloquial speech is stupid
discourse particles are stupid
quotative particles are stupid
fillers are stupid
lower registers of speech = stupid!!!!!!woah aaa/
Like, did you ever notice? That, like, the speech patterns people, like, think are stupid? Are, like, commonly associated with, like, women?
And, like, there’s this thing? Where, like, women aren’t supposed to be, like, assertive? So they, like, qualify their speech? Because, like, we’re not supposed to, like, stand by our opinions?
1) humiliate women so they don’t feel qualified to speak authoritatively about anything
2) humiliate women for speaking in such a way that reflects how you treat her
3) laugh, you are superior because you don’t use words like “like.” It isn’t as if being a huge stupid asshole has ever made you worse than a woman who speaks with verbal tics.
Holy shit
Whoa now. I didn’t need anyone to tell me to find excessive likes and uhs conversationally distracting. And then someone did, and it was my mom, perhaps because she’s an English teacher, but she’s probably to blame for my genetic aversion to speech filler. Still, i noticed these things from a young age, while teachers were too busy ironing out /s/, /p/ and /th/ or /r/, /l/ and /w/ to worry about colloquial bad habits. Whether it was Jenny Winters with her “likes” and speaking at half a decibel or Sean Mills with his “uhs” and constant, sweaty fidgeting, or Maura Graul who would rock back and forth so much we used to keep count at mock trial. Once you realize someone is doing it, your pet peeve forbids you from noticing anything else. It’s like if you met someone who had a bat in the cave and you didn’t feel comfortable telling them but you can’t listen to anything they say because there’s a big, yellow booger staring you in the face. There’s no rationale behind it, you just hate it.
This was still an interesting observation, I’d never thought of the patriarchy inherent in my pet peeves before, but you should still try to remove filler from your speech. Even if you get lucky and manage to string together an eloquent sentence, it makes you sound like you’re winging it. This was some bang-up feminism, but even after considering this and agreeing that you are probably right about the misogynistic origins of this criticism, I’m still going to find it irritating and make sure my kids don’t do it. The same will be true of mouth-breathing and holding silverware in fists. Again, blame my mom.
(via sati5000)






