Lack of vocabulary.
pmorin
Loc: Huntington Beach, Palm Springs
In reality, I do know some very intelligent individuals who are of the younger generations, they just have some very peculiar speech habits. Not unlike the habits some of us had as we were growing up. We have just had time to outgrow them. š
They need to read:
How to learn English without having trial...
pmorin wrote:
Has anyone else noticed the lack of vocabulary in the younger generations? They nearly all seem to converse in Valley speak. The word ālikeā will be used several times in the same sentence and to me itās just damn annoying.
I think that from now on Iām going to ask them if they mean āsimilarā every time they say that word. Just to screw with them.
What about the addition of "literally" in the same sentence?! "It was literally like...". I hear "literally" almost as much as I hear "like". It may have been around earlier, but I seem to remember the use of "like" escalating after the "beat generation" and I personally remember Maynard G. Krebs from the "Dobie Gillis" show saying "like" all the time and I think it caught on and escalated from there. I've graduated from annoyed to amused.
BudsOwl wrote:
If my memory serves me well, I think they have been using like for at least the last forty years if not longer.
Bud
But Not every other word!!
Reading and writing are no longer priorities. I'll stop at that lest I get banned from posting.
My 17 year old uses "literally" in literally every sentance.
Well...my Dad thought I only knew thirty or so words when I was a teenager... a lot of grunting.
That hasn't changed.
It's not just the young. It's people. Some people speak well, and some don't. Some folks take pride in talkin' folksie. "I ain't one a them fancy college educated snobs." There's no excuse for that. People watch TV, and they hear how language should be spoken. The way people speak is a choice.
Every generation is accused of 'going down the drain.' Yet somehow society continues to move forward. It's just different than the way we boomers did things, or the way our Depression era relatives did things.
Don't give up on the youth of today, yet!
It's curious that the English language has somewhere north of 600,000 words, yet most people get by on less than 250, which by definition makes it extraordinarily difficult to express a complex thought.
On reflection, 'complex thought' seems to rule out the majority of the population.
Personally, I think computers and word processing should shoulder a lot of the blame.
My father's generation could dictate a carefully thought through, and concisely expressed letter without editing. My generation agonized over edits of emails to improve clarity. Now it's as much as we can do to send a barely punctuated phase by text.
I always enjoy correctin the English use of words, as they are usually simular to others in meaning.
Like, I mean literally when they use like bro, or buddah, or bruh when they meen bruther! Makes one want to go nuculer.
And when you axe them a queschun, they go blank.
And some just don't get it. Guess their hard hedded or somthin. Guess it's gotta be tooken for granite nowa daze.
Like, I mean, like when yure like literally the very first one to axe them this things.
Begs the queschun, Is our Childrin lernin?
Bridges
Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA
pmorin wrote:
Has anyone else noticed the lack of vocabulary in the younger generations? They nearly all seem to converse in Valley speak. The word ālikeā will be used several times in the same sentence and to me itās just damn annoying.
I think that from now on Iām going to ask them if they mean āsimilarā every time they say that word. Just to screw with them.
And if you ever need to write a note you don't want a youngster to see, just write in cursive -- they won't be able to read it!
Quote from a friend:
"What at first appears to be a sloppy or meaningless use of words may in fact be a perfectly correct use of words to express sloppy or meaningless ideas."
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