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It's official----I'm a Language Nazi

Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 5:20 pm
by gumbo2176
Or so I've been told by my 2 step kids. The oldest, a male soon to be 26 college graduate in the computer industry, and the youngest, a female just turned 20 and a second year college student have me so pegged.

The oldest stayed with us from June to October then moved in with a friend to split expenses on a rental. While here, he was job hunting and doing some independent contract work building websites for clients. The youngest lives here and will likely remain so until she graduates and gets a job----at least that is the plan.

During their stay together, I got the pleasure??? of listening to many of their conversations and I must say, it is excruciatingly painful to do so. Most go something like this.

Him: Like, did you see the new I-phone that, like, you know, came out yesterday?

Her: Yeah, and like, you know, I just think it is like so cool.

Him: But, like, it's something like a couple hundred bucks, you know.

I've tried my best to communicate with them but find myself hearing "Like and you know" to a point that most other info is lost in the shuffle.

Truthfully, my stepson has been doing this since his first year of high school and I figured it was something he'd eventually grow out of, but it has only gotten worse over the years. His sister is a good deal better and is making a conscious effort to cut back on the "like, you knows".

One day recently, we were all together on the back porch and I was grilling dinner. My wife, her son and daughter were sitting on the porch swing talking and in the course of a 10 minute conversation I think I counted something in the neighborhood of 40 like, you knows. When I finally had my fill and mentioned how communication skills have degenerated with todays youth with the abbreviated text messages, e-mails and conversations heavily sprinkled with "Like and You Know" that's when they decided I was the above mentioned "Language Nazi".

If that means I can communicate in clear concise thoughts in both verbal and written form, then I must be guilty and not ashamed of it.

Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 6:15 pm
by DoubleDogFarm
like, that's really totally funny, don't you know. :lol:

I have relatives in North Dakota that use "don't you know"

What you are talking about, I believe, started in California. Valley Girl.

Eric

Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 6:28 pm
by webmaster
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnVE3UTIgEM]Frank Zappa satirized the valley girls[/url] like thirty years ago. :P

What a blast from the past. Had to listen to something strong like Sylvester to cleanse the valley girl stuff out of my system.

Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 7:09 pm
by DoubleDogFarm
OMG!

Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 10:27 am
by tomf
LOL :lol:

Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 11:00 am
by lorax
Like, OMG! Gross OUT. Gag me with a spoon. - Frank was a visionary, alright.

I, too, am a Grammar Nazi, although only in English. It's much more difficult to form grammatically incorrect sentences in Spanish. :()

Pet peeves include that oh-so-Canadian EH; my relatives, from Ontario, also use "doncha know" (with the ND inflection, no less). Huh is another that really gets me - you've already asked your question, stop grunting at me!

Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 12:05 pm
by DoubleDogFarm
C-eh-N eh-D-eh-A

that's how you spell Canada, doncha know. :lol:

are you ready to go, yet :)



Eric

Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 1:59 pm
by lorax
See, and I always thought it was am-EH-rick-EH, too, doncha know, huh?

Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 2:32 pm
by lorax
Hilarious, Marlin - have you ever felt the need to slap me? (I'm 28 ).

Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 2:33 pm
by DoubleDogFarm
This is off topic.

Why is it, United States citizen are called Americans, yet Canada, Mexico, Central and South America are not Americans?


Eric

Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 2:39 pm
by lorax
I'm not sure. Down here, we refer to anybody from the grouped American continents generically as Americans, and call US citizens "Estadounidenses" (literally "United-Statesians") or simply Gringoes or Yanquis. The former, however, is more politically correct.

It might have something to do with the US being, fully, the United States of America, and then developing an army so big that they could easily squish anybody non-United-Statesian that wanted to call themselves American....

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29g57XTYgLE]The Arrogant Worms have something to say about this very subject....[/url]

Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 3:43 pm
by webmaster
yet Canada, Mexico, Central and South America are not Americans?


When I was in Spain I met, a Mexican at a tapas restaurant in San Lucar who referred to himself as American. As far as I know, calling the citizens of the United States American was something started by the British way back. It's definitely a mistake for U.S. citizens to think that American refers only to citizens of the United States, because in fact it does not. As a practical matter though, in the U.S. it does. :?

Do Canadians refer to themselves as Canadian?

Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 3:48 pm
by DoubleDogFarm
You can call me a Greengo :D

Not a Griego, a Greek servant.
then developing an army so big that they could easily squish anybody non-United-Statesian that wanted to call themselves American....
Shhh.. China maybe listening.

Eric

Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 4:09 pm
by lorax
We (Canadians) do, but only inasmuch as it's the handiest differentiation from Americans in the United-statesian sense. Something not many people know is that Canada still isn't its own country (we have no constitution legally separating us from the UK - properly, the area is called the Dominion of Canada, and certainly the Queen of England is also the Queen of Canada; it's why we have only a Prime Minister, and not a President), so the term "Canadian" is a geographical signifier at best.

Down here, when people ask me about my original country, I don't normally say "I'm Canadian" but rather "I'm from Canada" Sometimes, to mess with their heads, I tell them I'm from Southern Ecuador - there are large colonies of naturalized Scots and Swiss there from waaay back in the 1800s, and there's a precedent for Ecuadoreans who look like me (ie tall and blonde).

Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 4:38 pm
by DoubleDogFarm
Did we lose Gumbo in the Foo?

People ask me where my farm is, I say, "I'm an Islander." Some of the other vendors, are from other islands, but none are from America. :lol:

When we go off island, we call it going to America.
who look like me (ie tall and blonde).
Now we have come full circle, back to Nazis :shock: Killing people that didn't fit the mold.

Eric

Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 4:53 pm
by lorax
How does my being tall and blonde and looking like a Southern Ecuadorean (incidentally, of Scots extraction) relate back to the Nazis?!?!?!? Nobody here has ever offered to kill me because I'm not short and dark.... :shock:

Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 5:26 pm
by gumbo2176
Nah, not lost, just lurking to see how others feel about one of my pet peeves.

MG, you hit the nail on the head when it comes to my attention span during such conversations. I can't tell you how many times I've said to my stepson to simply slow down, collect your thoughts, then state them clearly without all the "like and you knows" sprinkled in. He can do it when he really tries, but you can actually see the effort in his demeanor. If he gets excited about something, all bets are off.

I also tried to make him think of this from a potential employers point of view. I guess it's a good thing I'm not a Personnel Manager and interviewing some of today's youth. I think my age is showing here.

As for now, his job consists of sitting behind a keyboard and doing whatever it takes to build websites and fix ones that are not to the customers liking. There is a certain amount of direct communication with the customers, but a lot of that is handled by sales people and the owners, then gets filtered down to him.

Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 6:52 pm
by DoubleDogFarm
Oops! Sorry Lorax, I didn't mean to offend anyone.

I'm a Language Nazi, and the Nazi breading of caucasian, blue eyed, blondes. Sorry it came across wrong. Poor taste.

Eric

Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 7:13 pm
by lorax
Why did you assume I have blue eyes? :twisted:

Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 7:40 pm
by DoubleDogFarm
I don't believe I called anyone blue eyed. I was saying the Nazis were raising caucasian, blue eyed, blondes.

I'm 3/4 Norwegian, and eveyone assume, I'm blue eyed. Grey or gray.

I'm gowing back to gardening. This Hoo Ha and Foo is just that.

Eric

Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2010 1:54 am
by Troppofoodgardener
Not being from the US, Canada or any part of the Americas, I can say that I find the Canuck way of saying "doncha know"... HILARIOUS!!!
It makes me like... totally laugh! :lol:

New Zealanders also have something very similar with the Canadian way of saying "eh" at the end of their sentences. I'm sure we Aussies have some quirky ways of speaking, accents not included! 8)

Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2010 8:16 am
by lorax
What's always gotten me about Aussies is the use of little idiomatic phrases. I went to school with a Roo who constantly said things like "no worries" where a Canuck would say "doncha know" - and we found each other hilarious for probably the same reason. :()

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 12:53 am
by cynthia_h
I don't know whether it's a San Francisco Bay Area speech habit, but "no worries" is rapidly displacing "no problem" in the local lexicon. More Strine, no doubt.

As for "like," "you know," and their ilk, I've been known to treat them as actual content. This startles the speaker to no end. :twisted: In fact, many seem not to be aware of these phrases in their own speech until said phrases are responded to. :lol:

Example (this one is made up, but is taken from life):

Speaker: "You, uh, you know, about, like..."

Me: Yes! (note: it's important that this be said in an enthusiastic, participatory tone of voice.)

Speaker: [?] "I mean, like, you know..."

Me: I do; quite a bit. (note: again enthusiastic. Match, if possible, the mood of the speaker so that you are participating with and not against him/her.)

Speaker: [?] What?

And there we have the beginning of an actual discussion about ... language. Imagine that! :D

This has happened to me two or three times at the large dog park near here, my best source of interaction with people not previously known to me. No doubt I sound strange to them when we start, but by the "What?" point of the interchange, they're definitely paying attention to what they are saying, since *I* clearly am. :lol:

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 4:43 am
by Troppofoodgardener
cynthia_h wrote:I don't know whether it's a San Francisco Bay Area speech habit, but "no worries" is rapidly displacing "no problem" in the local lexicon. More Strine, no doubt.
:lol: I like that! Had no idea the impact we Aussies had on the San Fran Bay Area. 8)

Now if only we can get everyone to call each other "mate"... ;)

Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 8:52 am
by gumbo2176
MG, as I've mentioned before, I belong to a motorcycle group and it is a worldwide organization with membership upwards of 33k+. I've had folks from Canada "Eh", Australia and New Zealand "Good on ya mate", and Mexico City stay at my house at varying times.

The guy from Canada truly didn't realize he was saying "Eh" so much, but when my stepdaughter (age 12 back then) asked him what that meant because he was saying it so much, he looked dumbfounded.

We all have our colloquialisms and that is part of what makes our geographic language unique. New Orleans has so many it boggles the mind of many out of towners.

Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 10:47 am
by csvd87
DoubleDogFarm wrote:When we go off island, we call it going to America.
Eric, we of Vancouver Island refer to it as "Going to the Main Land" or "Going to the Big City" as we typically go to Vancouver.

I found myself always saying I was Canadian, or from Canada when I was traveling Europe. They do seem to treat you nicer once they know you are not from the USA. Although some of them can't distinguish accents at all, one guy from Italy thought my sister and I were Australian. I will admit I had a tough time picking out English from Australian at first, but figured it out rather quick as the Australian accent (mostly Melbourne and Brisbane area) was, well, for lack of a better phrase, more "down under". Then we met two girls from Sidney, who were some of the worst, snottiest people we met on our trip, but had more of an English accent, but that might have been because they had their chins so high in the air when they spoke. I'm not saying the English are snotty, just that these two girls had snotty accents.

Well that's all I have to say.

Have a good day eh!

Curtis


One more thing, most of us do not say "aboot"... that's the Newfie accent :P

Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 11:26 am
by applestar
:lol: csvd87, I'm assuming you had your tongue firmly planted in your cheek as you wrote the above post as it seems to me that some of what was said could be inferred as insulting, depending on the reader's mood and point of view. :lol:

Either that or *I*m having that kind of a skewed perception morning.... :P

Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 12:38 pm
by csvd87
First off, excuse my grammar, I'm responding on my cell phone, my crappy cell phone. None of which I said was meant to be insulting. If it was, or you feel that it is, I apologize. I'm only speaking from experiences and shouldn't generalize regions or people. Once again I'm sorry, it was early. Later I may get into why these two girls were terrible, but for now I will just zip my lip.

Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 11:12 pm
by Troppofoodgardener
Marlingardener wrote:He was from Australia and we understood every word he said.
HaHaHHHAAAA!! :lol: LMFAO :lol:

Yes.. we Aussies don't so much speak English, than a varied form of "Strine"!! (bad mashing of the word "Australian") Feel free to wave our flag too, although I'm sure the next visitors from Downunder would probably feel a bit confused when met with your Central Texan accents! ;)

As for csvd87's comment on those Sydney girls... There are snotty people everywhere. Australia is no exception, even though the general perception of us (I think) is the laidback "she'll be right, mate" type B personality. No offence taken anyway!