Talk like you know…

At the risk of being accused as an eavesdropper, let me first offer this disclaimer. If you’re engaged in a conversation in public, and I happen to be near, then chances are my “researcher’s ears” will kick in, and not only will I overhear some of your convo, but I’ll probably have a critique as well. I’m finding that happening often lately, and there are a couple of things that have been especially sticking out to me – the use of the word “like” and the phrase “sort of.”

Like, I sort of don’t understand like why people sort of like use these things like sort of all of the time.

That sentence reads poorly written out, doesn’t it? But, like, how many times have you sort of heard people talk like this? I bet, like, sort of often. Sort of.

I don’t get it. I wonder if they are crutches that we rely on as we process our thoughts (notice, I said “we,” because after paying attention to myself talking, I realized that I too was injecting “sort ofs” in places where I didn’t mean sort of at all). Is it like (like intended) when the little wheel is spinning on our computer screens, letting us know that something’s happening in the background?

Walk with me now as I get a little deeper, but I think that maybe our language reflects our present infatuation with indecisiveness, driven by an overwhelming amount of choices in our complex lives. This is further exasperated by our preference to be noncommittal whenever possible. Told you I was gonna get deep. But seriously, this has to be coming from somewhere. It certainly doesn’t help that everyone’s talking like this (while we also inflect statements as if they are questions, sounding even more unsure of what we’re sort of like unsure about). Maybe we’re talking like this so that we can sound like everyone else. Maybe that’s not the best idea, especially when it makes us sound like we shouldn’t believe ourselves.

One thing I am sure about. We need to get it together, and stop using like and sort of as the glue holding our sentences together. Listen to yourselves talk then adjust accordingly. (This is especially true when giving a classroom presentation, but is a great thing in general). Maybe if we speak like we know what we mean, we might actually mean more of what we say (Daily Graduate #32).