The most dreaded phrase I can ever hear as a teacher does not begin with “Can I have an extension because. . .”
And it doesn’t begin with “I forgot my homework. . .”
Neither does it begin with “Can I meet with you at 8 pm on Friday because I’m busy doing. . .”
It does not even begin with “Did I miss anything important?”
The most annoying, intolerable, hated phrase starts with “It’s when. . .”
“What is the Inquisition?”
“It’s when. . .”
“What is Tenochtitlan?”
“It’s when. . .”
“Who is Bartolome de Las Casas?”
“It’s when. . .”
No. It’s not when. This phrase should be banned from campus. We are at the level where even the question “What is a civil war?” should not be answered with “it’s when.” We should know how to say “it is an armed conflict between. . .”
Twenty-two “it’s whens” in a single homework assignment, people. And I have 16 more papers to read.
Clarissa's Blog 
“Like” bothers me more than “when” does. Maybe beginning a sentence with “It’s when, like, you know…” is a more elegant way of saying “uhhh…” when one cannot think what to say and is stalling for time, but in writing it is not difficult to edit out.
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I get “like ” extremely rarely, to be honest.
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‘Like’ may be less common here than it was a few years ago, but I still hear it, and occasionally read it.
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Somebody else would consider “did I miss anything” after missing (a) class(es) be one of the most annoying questions and there is even a poem about it. Read it and thought of you.
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Good poem, I like it. Thank you!
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