I Mean, Like

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Clarissa

December 6, 2012

It really bugs me that my students keep peppering their utterances with “I mean” and “like.” That isn’t because I’m such a purist but simply because they use these expressions while speaking Spanish. At this point, their Spanish is very advanced, so they chatter away like little chatterboxes. The way their Spanish sounds as a result, is something like this:

Los problemas, like, económicos de España son, like, muy graves. Las medidas de, I mean, austeridad, todavía, like, no han producido, like, I mean, muchos resultados positivos. En realidad, like, no he podido, I mean, encontrar ni un solo, like, resultado, like, positivo, I mean, en mis lecturas y, like, mi investigación. Like. I mean. And I’m like, I mean, eso no está bien.

As you can imagine, this gets quite annoying.

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5 responses to “I Mean, Like”

Dame Eleanor Hull

December 6, 2012

Pero me hace sonreer.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  December 6, 2012
  
  I vaguely remember having some sense of humor earlier in the semester bit it’s all gone now. 🙂
  
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n8chz

December 6, 2012

It grinds my gears a little, but I’m willing to chalk it up to neurodiversity, as it is most likely some kind of neural tic. Being of somewhat “hyperlexic” bent myself, I imagine much of the speech I hear transcribed in real time as text on the VT-100 (display terminal) in my head. I’ve developed a reflex for replacing “like” with “…”. There’s also a macro which inserts “[sic]” after grammatical and other mechanical infarctions [sic]. I find it calms the nerves.

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Jonathan Mayhew

December 6, 2012

You need to give them muletillas in Spanish to replace the ones they use in English.

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Saia Sikira

December 6, 2012

Yeah, just teach them to say “pues”, “total”, “como”, “digo” and such, and then it will be properly annoying. . One of the kids I’m minding keeps saying “sort of” and “thingy” and it awakens my most dangerous instincts!

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