Try to, like, speak better

Dear editor: Have we become lazy using our English language?

Recently, many parts of the English speaking world have made a choice of colloquializing the English language. Many words are used in informal speech to create an effect. The use of these colloquialisms on an informal basis is shown by teenagers up to and including some octogenarians.

One only has to watch TV personalities to see what I’m referring to. A language shift over the last number of years has made such words as “ain’t” acceptable in some areas. If memory serves me right, as a children were told, “Ain’t ain’t a word!” Remember?

This day and age harbours what might be termed “bastardized versions of words.” The words that stand out are like, behind, going to, and fun just to name a few.

Occasionally I drive a school bus. There are several students who use words out of context. The main one is “Like!”

I have overheard students discussing things and the word like seems to permeate the whole discourse. I listened to two teenage girls discussing a movie that one had seen and the other was going to see. One girl, in the space of about two minutes, incorporated the word like 38 times in her description of the movie. The word like has a meaning related to comparison. I didn’t know what was being compared here.

Behind is another word that has been abstracted. It is made up of be and hind. Yet we abstract it and pronounce it “Ba-hind.” Why is that? We’ve become somewhat lazy it seems. Ba-hind is not “behind” in any sense.

Further to that remember the last time you were asked a question which warranted a “yes” or “no” answer and you answered “Yaa?” Boorish or what?

Another maligned word has to do with “going to.” We have managed to slide that word into “gunna!” Lazy or what?

The classic term of the day is “Fun.” We hear announcers, friends and relatives use the phrase “that is so fun!” Again we have become lazy in our speech. Why, is anyone’s guess!

We no longer differentiate North American English from the “Queen’s English” as the U.K. is experiencing this flagrant change in speaking as well. Where it will end is anyone’s guess!

In summary, I guess that “like yaa, it ain’t gunna matter in the long run it’ll be so fun!” Ron Barillaro

Penticton