More Abuse of the Language

Addenda to the 29 September post regarding misuse of the English language:

* My wife and several of her siblings commonly refer to "these ones" when specifying items. ("These ones are my favorites.") Before I met them, I'd heard only one other person in my life use that expression. I think it runs in families.

* Among the enduring horrors of beatnik-hippie-valley days is the insertion of "like" into almost any statement by millions of Americans now spanning several generations. "That's, like, so cool!" "She's, like, my mother." "I was, like, furious." "I think he's, like, at work today, or maybe, like, out playing golf." "That's not really what I would call yellow; it's, like, sunburst, or maybe, like, light gold." "What I really, like, want to do with my life is maybe get, like, a job somewhere in a factory and, like, learn to make things with, like, my hands."

Our teen-age daughters waste so much time that way making the simplest of statements, attempting to wax, like, cool with their verbal delivery, that I sometimes, like, just have to get up from the kitchen table and, like, leave the room.