saying like

Yes, it matters a lot. If you have the “like” repetition habit badly enough for someone to have to keep correcting you, I would recommend against hiring you as a teacher, or in any job where you have to speak to the public.. I can’t think of any teacher I have ever met who had the “like” habit — it is just not acceptable in adult conversation. Particularly as a teacher, your job is communication, and a tic like this interferes with and distracts from your message. Your aunt was doing you a favour, letting you know how badly you have let this habit take over your speech. You need to continue to talk to her or someone else with the patience to help you until you have brought this under conscious control.

It would all depend… but a lot of people who are doing hiring *do* notice that kind of thing, or don’t consciously notice it but it still makes an impression, which is even more important. It’s that subtle but significant difference between two candidates for a job that makes a difference no matter what the job; if you were applying for a job that involved being in front of people and talking, then yes, the “like” habit would be, like, you know, obnoxious.
Linguistically, it’s normal to have a “filler syllable” but it is highly useful to be able to control its use. For some of my students it’s “you-know-what-I’m-saying” that has morphed into “nome sane?” or, “Know what I mean?” that also morphs into some garbled sounds… so “like” at least makes some kind of sense :-)

HOWEVER, it is one of those “pet peeves” for some people that doesn’t matter a whit to others. (So, just because *one* person corrected me, I wouldn’t assume it was something everybody noticed.) I’d want to, like, ask myself (if it were difficult to break the ‘like’ habit), do I like want to work for people who are always like picking on the tiniest like detail about like my speech?

One time I was listening to a call-in show on the radio. The caller said “like” literally every third word. The radio psychologist tried to get him to stop or at least to cut down so that the message could get through. The caller simply *could not* speak without constantly saying “like”. It was funny but at the same time sad. If a person does this often enough that people notice it, yes it is serious. You really need to control this bait if you want people to be able to listen to you.

I hate to say this but when people do that, they sound as though they are not very intellegent. I cringe when I hear kids do that, eek! And as someone who has hired many people, I would NEVER hire anyone who could not speak clearly without interjecting words such as “LIKE,” “TOTALLY,” and/or “FOR SURE!”

Breaking news: leedlelop’s surfboard store has had to close its doors after a fruitless year-long hunt for qualified staff.

If you want to know how bad, or how good, it sounds tape yourself in conversation. If it sounds bad, work on it. If, however, you somehow manage to produce a like-free tape, through being self-conscious, you’ll also be able to control it when necessary.

The problem probably only arose due to the general breakdown of good manners and social etiquette. We all got along much better when familiar and formal forms of address were adhered to. As in: “[b][i]Mrs. [/i][/b]Robinson, you are trying to seduce me”.

My children attend a school where the rule is that pupils must address all teachers, and the principal himself, by their first names. Some kind of progressive idea. Nothing good is going to come of that.

LOLOL :=)

I have to confess, though, that when I called a company in California and the message on the answering machine went something like ‘Hey, you’ve reached Xtracycle at the end of the year! We’re taking a few days off…” it exuded surfdom (not to be confused with serfdom) … but “like” was not in the mix. (I could reach Kip at this number, Tim at that number, and I could reach Laughter telepathically… but I’d already had emails from Laughter so I *knew* she was around!)