[ExI] You know what?

[Lee Corbin]

Spike writes

> Lee what we are hearing is a good example of a speech diluter or filler.  It
> serves the purpose of giving the speaker time to think by inserting a
> meaningless word or phrase.  Notice that these fillers are absent from
> written text.

Well, I cannot explain why they're absent from written text. (One idea
is that the total stupidity---when seen in black and white---is just too
revolting for any current specimen of homo sapiens.)

But I don't buy your theory.  As with "you know what?", and the other
solecisms, people use this to try to sound authentic.  (Note to JC: while
we're at it, come the revolution, can we also hunt down the people who
started the "authenticity" craze?)   That is, they want to sound down-
home, e.g. "real", and unaffected.

True, there are some problems in English:  some correct forms such
as answering a question "It was I", or "I am he" sound hopelessly
affected, and will always, it seems, call attention to themselves. Of
course, for me to admit that may simply be a sign that all the people
who could speak entirely standard and grammatical English are long
since dead.

> Another good example is like.  Like isn't new; teenagers said like a lot
> when we were their age.  Notice that like is always followed by, and often
> preceeded by a pause.  This is used as thinking time.

! Spike, great minds think a-,  er, great minds think similarly.  I just
posted on that problem.  But in this case, I submit that often the
teenagers know *exactly* what word, they're going to use, and
are just trying to affirm that they're not terribly articulate (which
would be embarrassing and which, they fear, perhaps rightly
would increase the social difference between them and their
interlocutors).

But my conjecture here could be tested:  are there cases in which
the word just before "like" is totally unavoidable?  If not, then
maybe you're right:  could be it really is gaining time to choose
between possible next words, or to find a suitable word.

> Take a spoken
> sentence with the filler like, take out the pauses before and after, then
> repeat the sentence.  Now it scarcely makes sense, or rather the term like
> takes on a different meaning, and changes the meaning of the sentence.  {8^D
> Try it.

I can believe that "like" sometimes changes the meaning.  In fact, there are
occasions where I think it's dandy:  when it's meaning is like approximately.
So where can we find truly authentic sentences enunciated by the hoi-polloi
on which we can try your test?

Lee

> Exi-ers, speak as you write; sound smarter by freeing your speech of
> fillers.
> 
> ol' spike