Bill, I enjoyed this article, and my (community college) students will also. I was interested in the mention of the linguists' argument that "like" and other filler words confer some advantages: they gain the speaker a moment to gather thoughts, they seem to encourage more complex sentences, and they discourage listeners from interrupting. About the last two points, the article refers to "studies," and if anyone knows of such research, I would be interested (I can be reached off-list at [log in to unmask]).

Brock

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Spruiell, William C
Sent: Thu 2/5/2004 11:54 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc:
Subject: Language article on "Like" in WSJ online

The online version of the Wall Street Journal has an article on the use of ‘like’ for, like, every other, like, word. Particularly interesting is the fact that apparently some speech pathologists are charging $100 an hour or so for the kind of speech intervention that anyone with even a mild sadistic streak could do. I realize this might be a bit off-topic, but I thought it could be used as a discussion item in middle- or high-school grammar classes. I’m pasting a link to it below.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB107577318033518819-Ihje4Nolah3m5uraHyGa6mAm5,00.html

Bill Spruiell

Dept. of English

Central Michigan University

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