I Hate to Hear Twenty-Somethings Speak
Worse than fingernails on a blackboard, though they don't know what that is.
My wife and I had a favorite Thai restaurant when we lived in Austin, Texas. It wasn’t the best Thai restaurant in our experience. We’ve dined at much better ones in Washington, D.C., and Yorktown, Virginia. The best one was in Arlington, Virginia.
At any rate, our favorite Thai restaurant in Austin was very good and accordingly popular. And because Thai food is relatively inexpensive, it drew a lot of twenty- (and-thirty-) somethings.
Thus the air was filled (as usual) with “like”, “like”, “like”, “like”, and more “like”, ad nauseum. It made me want to stand up and shout “Shut up, I can’t take it any more.”
One evening, the fellow at the next table not only used “like” in every sentence, but also had a raspy, penetrating vocal fry, which is another irritating speech pattern of twenty-somethings. He was seated so that he was facing in my direction. As a result, I had to turn down my hearing aids to soften the croak that ended his every sentence.
His date (a person of the opposite sex, which is noteworthy in Austin) merely giggled at everything he said. It must have been a getting-to-know you date. The relationship couldn’t have lasted if she was at all fussy about “like” or if he was put off by giggling.
Harumph!
NPR reporter Eyder Peralta says "um" every other sentence. He's talented enough, I'm sure, but how did he get this far without a higher-up checking this annoyance? A radio reporter. On national radio. Who csays um like a high school sophomore.