Dear Nora: I can’t take it anymore. I can’t stand talking with young people (and some not so young people) today who misuse grammar or sing when they talk or elongate the last syllable. Also, I find it infuriating when they use the word “like” 5 times in a sentence when not even once is appropriate or necessary.
I don’t wish to sound arrogant or snobbish. I understand that youngsters have their own ways but in my youth, we never would have gotten away with such bad manners or insolent slang when speaking with our elders.
Our neighbor’s daughter is a kind girl but I’ve started avoiding even the briefest of conversations with her as she begins every sentence with “I mean,” and then goes on to state something or other.
Or, she says, “I'm like … blah blah blah, like, blah blah blah. Or, “Imeanlikeyaknow,” in and amongst her story!
Argh!!!
Is it me or have schools stopped teaching our children proper English? I dread to think what kind of an adult she’ll become or what profession she’ll end up in if her speech is so peppered with pointlessness. She’ll be good for nothing more than serving in fast food restaurants.
Should I say something or just continue avoiding any interaction with anyone under the age of 50? — Grammatically correct Grandma in Georgia
Dear Grams: Oh, don’t even get me started! I feel your pain. I get your frustration. I, too, find it difficult to concentrate on the subject when the speaker is spouting paragraphs of meaningless words before coming to the point – if there is one.
I further share your consternation that this plague of pointless platitudes isn’t limited to the young. I've heard full-grown adults using such juvenile vernacular that I find myself questioning their values and hoping that they haven’t produced equivalent offspring.
But, alas, it isn’t the lack of schooling as much as it’s the ever-present, 24/7, round-the-clock popular media. Teachers and oldies alike don’t stand a chance when up against the assault on verbal propriety from the likes of hip-hop singers with low-slung trousers and sideways baseball caps, wearing enough bling to rival our dear, flamboyant Liberace, and slurring bizarre lyrics that entice today’s young whippersnappers to aspire to do the same. Don’t waste your breath trying to enlighten the unenlightenable.
We can’t possibly compete. So, I advise that you grit your teeth and learn to tolerate the idiocy just as our parents must have done when teenage young men of our youth sported DAs (the haircut of choice for the cool guys) and we used terms like beatnik, and everything but everything was coooool, and doo wop was like caaaraaazy man. Every new generation is an annoying anathema to its ancestors – that’s their only purpose on the planet until they grow old enough to suffer the abomination of their own progeny. And, trust me, suffer they will.
Just imagine what music will sound like or what will pass for intellectual conversation when the likes of PoDiaddyDaddy, Lil Whatever, and Enema are our age and having to endure their children’s nonsensical gibberish.
What goes around, comes around.
Nora will take requests for advice through email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.