Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
In the current issue of City Journal, a brief, brilliant essay by Clark Whelton, a former speechwriter for their honors Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani. (Hat tip to Rev. George Rutler, the unofficial Ricochet
chaplain.) Whelton has been listening to college students. He despairs. (So do I.)
An excerpt:
By autumn 1987, the job interviews revealed that “like” was no longer a mere slang usage. It had mutated from hip preposition into the verbal milfoil that still clogs spoken English today. Vagueness was on the march. Double-clutching (“What I said was, I said . . .”) sprang into the arena. Playbacks, in which a speaker re-creates past events by narrating both sides of a conversation (“So I’m like, ‘Want to, like, see a movie?’ And he goes, ‘No way.’ And I go . . .”), made their entrance. I was baffled by what seemed to be a reversion to the idioms of childhood. And yet intern candidates were not hesitant or uncomfortable about speaking elementary school dialects in a college-level job interview. I engaged them in conversation and gradually realized that they saw Vagueness not as slang but as mainstream English. At long last, it dawned on me: Vagueness was not a campus fad or just another generational raid on proper locution. It was a coup. Linguistic rabble had stormed the grammar palace....
Whelton closes with some infuriated but serious questions:
Is Vagueness simply an unexplainable descent into nonsense? Did Vagueness begin as an antidote to the demands of political correctness in the classroom, a way of sidestepping the danger of speaking forbidden ideas? Does Vagueness offer an undereducated generation a technique for camouflaging a lack of knowledge?
Well?
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May '10
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
Well, what it is, is, it's a thing people do, you know, when they like, aren't sure what they are going to say.
Another verbal tick people have here on the West Coast is to start with "So" and periodically ask "right?" in the middle of retelling an event: "So, I walked into the snowboard rental shop, right? And the next thing I know, I'm like surrounded by all these other boarders."
This has frustrated me as long as I've been aware of it. I have no idea how to account for it, other than mutual mimicry.
Jul '10
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
Peter, it seems to me that Welton was, like, recruiting from the wrong schools.
I recruited hundreds of graduates from the University of Delaware and University of Maryland during that same time and over subsequent years and never once encountered that sort of laxity in verbal expression.
So maybe it's, like, a New York City thing, you know? Dude?
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
Kenneth: Peter, it seems to me that Welton was, like, recruiting from the wrong schools.
I recruited hundreds of graduates from the University of Delaware and University of Maryland during that same time and over subsequent years and never once encountered that sort of laxity in verbal expression.
So maybe it's, like, a New York City thing, you know? Dude? · Feb 15 at 9:24am
Hm. The fancier the school--or perhaps the more urban the school?--the worse the problem of Vaguespeak. There may be a lot to that, Kenneth. Riochetians in the Midwest? What say?
Jun '10
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
"Did Vagueness begin as an antidote to the demands of political correctness in the classroom, a way of sidestepping the danger of speaking forbidden ideas?" I don't think so. I really doubt anyone who speaks like this is really clever enough to use it as a tool.
"Does Vagueness offer an undereducated generation a technique for camouflaging a lack of knowledge?" If they are consciously attempting to hide a lack of knowledge, they are failing miserably. When my daughter started high school, I thought I was rescuing her from the local bad speech habits by choosing a well regarded private school. (Could of went, etc.) Turns out the selective h.s. she attended just had a different set of bad speech patterns. Using "like" six times in a sentence was my pet peeve. I would charge the girls $$ whenever they said it if they were in my car. It got them thinking & the use of "like" dropped. Luckily, my daughter never picked up that habit, or I'd have gone mad.
Jun '10
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
When, um, the President does it, um, I don't see the problem here.
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
Years ago, when my dad was in the FBI and interviewing candidates, the thing that really bugged him was "Yeah" instead of "yes." I thought (I was a kid) he was overreacting. But now that I comb white hairs I share the irritation at the increasing casualness.
A friend of our family, an AP writer named Jules Loh, used to speak of the glories of the simple declarative sentence -- he likened its beauty to a pretty woman in a simple black cocktail dress. That's true of spoken English as well as of written English.
Jun '10
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
Children are following the examples of their elders. The media has much to do with our linguistic meltdown. Public figures can speak for hours without saying anything they can be taken to task for. Plain speech opens one to all kinds of charges, from political incorrectness up to possible legal action. Suspects become "persons of interest," aircraft accidents become "negative air-ground interfaces."
People learn from example. My own vocabulary is kept up by the high level of intelligent expression that is demonstrated at Ricochet.com. I'd venture to say that others would change their ways of expressing themselves if they were regulars here.
Feb '11
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
I'm afraid this "new-vague-speak" is not limited to such places as New York City, the West Coast, or the more elite schools. The state of Pennsylvania considers two sterling degrees: one in history and one in English, inadequate to teach either history or English in our magnificent public schools, so I am engaged in graduate re-education at a local state university to gain the necessary credentials.
Vague speak is a direct product of the vague think that is demonstrated by many of my younger classmates. I think there is a general fear of clarity of thought because that clarity results in conflict and they are very, very adverse to conflict in conversation.
Also older non-traditional students rarely speak like this, but they do often demonstrate the same fuzzy thinking about any difficult topic (this was most obvious in a seminar on multiculturalism I attended - against my will). When you try to present a reasonable and logical explaniation for something you are often accused of being "rhetorical", I'm still not sure what that crime is, but I think it must be very, very bad. Tis a very strange place the modern academy.
Jul '10
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
Peter Robinson
Hm. The fancier the school--or perhaps the more urban the school?--the worse the problem of Vaguespeak. There may be a lot to that, Kenneth. Riochetians in the Midwest? What say? · Feb 15 at 9:30am
Peter, I deliberately sought out candidates who largely came from blue-collar backgrounds and were the first in their families to graduate from college. The jobs I offered were good opportunities, but they weren't glamorous.
The glamorous jobs in Manhattan went to the well-connected children of the Eastern elite, who, perhaps, adopt these sorts of grammatical tics as a sort of faux populism.
Jun '10
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
I'll have to stop using "yeah" in my posts. It's a Jersey thing. Like cawfee.
May '10
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
How are "playbacks" an example of vagueness? If anything, they represent a failure to summarize.
If there's a trend of vagueness, kids likely learned it from their parents. Political correctness still shackles the vast majority of Americans. It's a step up if someone actually speaks his mind, albeit through a series of verbal speedbumps.
In any case, I don't care if people muddle their language in casual conversation as long as they're able and willing to adapt in more formal or serious situations. We each use multiple dialects. A kid is likely to stubbornly hold onto a casual dialect when adults try to erase that dialect, rather than supplement it.
A skilled speaker doesn't use one dialect all the time. A skilled speaker understands when and how to adapt his or her language to particular settings.
May '10
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
I am prone to fits of despair about the state of the culture. One came while standing in line waiting to buy books at Borders. There were two girls next to me talking about their upcoming graduation. Their "dialog" went something like this:
Girl 1: "I don't know, I'm kind of like thinking of maybe getting something for my friends? But I don't know. You know what I mean?"
Girl2: "You mean, like a present?"
Girl 1: "Yeah, kind of like a present, but not like a present. I don't know. Maybe like a pen, but not a pen. You know what I mean? I don't know."
But it's impossible to convey the inarticulateness using actual words. I nearly burst into tears.
I'm also prone to fits of irritability when I see its effects on my children--such as the habit of telling a story in questions:
Child: "Mom: Yesterday? We were like on the bus? And the driver? Well, not the usual driver, but the driver we sometimes have? He was like:..."
Me: "I'm sorry, I can't listen. Don't talk to me in questions! It's too annoying."
Jul '10
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
Peter, does this mean I can't use "like" and "um" in my comments anymore?
Death by a thousand cuts, buddy. Next thing I know, you'll deprive me of italics and then my quiver will be, like, totally empty.
Nov '10
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
Peter Robinson
Hm. The fancier the school--or perhaps the more urban the school?--the worse the problem of Vaguespeak. There may be a lot to that, Kenneth. Riochetians in the Midwest? What say?
I loved the young people I worked with when I lived in the Midwest. They were quick learners, wholesome, hard-working, responsible, and friendly. I can't say that I remember a lot of Vaguespeak among them. However, there were distinct tradeoffs; they had problems with simple grammar (to the point of poor subject-verb agreement), and their cultural literacy was abysmal.
Actually, if you want to try a scary little test, ask a few young people with postgraduate degrees if they recognize the phrase "there is something rotten in the state of Denmark." See if they can even generate a hypothesis as to its possible origin.
Jul '10
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
Camouflage for ignorance seems plausible. Teachers who've disparaged the acquisition of knowledge- oops I meant "rote learning"- certainly made sure that plenty of bright youngsters are ignorant.
Or perhaps more youngsters aspire to be politicians.
Then again, maybe the whole vagueness deal is all just relative-type stuff? Know what I'm sayin'?
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
In my experience, the specific, verifiable requirements attending the more technical disciplines ward against Vague Speak. I can't recall a young engineer or physician speaking this way:
"So, he's like, groaning, and I, like, shove and he like yells louder, and I'm thinkin' wo! that's gnarly rebound tenderness you've got there bro'. I ask, like, 'where?' and he goes 'here,' pointing to the right lower quadrant, so I go 'you're gonna need surgery, right? your appendix is gonna blow.' And he goes, like, 'now?' I go, 'uh huh' and so we're, like, prepping him right now."
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
Pilots also can't get away with fuzzy verbalizing:
"NorCal approach, like, this is umm, y'know, twin Cessna 321 Charlie Delta and we're thinkin 'bout goin' and shootin' the approach, y'know? the instrument thing for San Jose, right? GPS or whatever. Anyways, we're in clouds at, umm, three thousand, right? Radar vectors? Heading kinda north. Anyway, over to you. Okay?"
Edited on Feb 15, 2011 at 10:17amAug '10
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
Students are taught to express their "feelings", rather than to demonstrate their knowledge. Opinions and impressions are considered more important than facts.
As such, it is no surprise to me that so much of this youth slang is designed to express uncertainty in the validity of one's own speech.
Each one of these idioms is a qualifier which indicates that the speaker is unsure if what they are saying is actually the truth.
Rather than saying, "I am angry," one says, "I'm, like, angry," because one is afraid of being criticized or contradicted for one's own speech.
By saying something like, "so, I walked into the snowboard shop, right?" the speaker isn't telling their audience what happened. Rather, they are asking their audience for validation that their experience as they remember it actually happened.
These idioms are a symptom of how students are taught to be submissive to wider opinion, while at the same time teaching them to never trust any information as fact.
If a young person can never be certain about the truth of any statement, how can they ever express their own thoughts with any certainty?
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
Uptalk? Ending sentences with a question? It's, like, an attempt to make a statement without seeming like you're asserting a position, which could be hurtful to someone who doesn't agree, and that would be, like, disrespectful?
Or, to put it another way, St. Salieri made the same point, and I agree. So there. It's odd: we're supposed to teach kids to be self-confident and brimming with self-esteem, but they end up sounding insecure. Possibly because we don't teach them they have to earn self-confidence through actions and accomplishments, not by the mere fact that they exist.
Re: Vaguespeak, American Students, and the End of All Meaning
Kenneth: Peter, does this mean I can't use "like" and "um" in my comments anymore?
Death by a thousand cuts, buddy. Next thing I know, you'll deprive me of italics and then my quiver will be, like, totally empty. · Feb 15 at 10:02am
Me? Ban italics? Kenneth! Without them, I would fall mute.