Say What You Like

“It was a coup… The principles of effective speech had gone up in flames”

Back in 2011, political speechwriter Clark Whelton wrote of his dawning realization that a form of communication he called Vagueness was overtaking everyday spoken English. “Vagueness was not a campus fad…,” he wrote in a City Journal essay. “It was a coup. Linguistic rabble had stormed the grammar palace. The principles of effective speech had gone up in flames.”

His first awareness of the trend came in 1985 while conducting interviews for internships on Mayor Ed Koch’s speechwriting staff. The first applicant was a young NYU student who “spiked his replies so heavily with ‘like’ that I mentioned his frequent use of the word. He seemed confused by my comment and replied, ‘Well . . . like . . . yeah.’” The next three interviewees did the same, and Mr. Whelton was even more troubled to find a drop in the quality of the writing samples they submitted. After six tries, he finally found a student qualified for the position.   Then came 1986. As the interviews proceeded, it grew obvious that “like” had strengthened its grip on intern syntax….The candidates seemed to be evading the chore of beginning new thoughts. They spoke in run-on sentences, which they padded by adding “and stuff” at the end. Their writing samples were terrible. It took eight tries to find a promising intern.

In the spring of 1987 came the all-interrogative interview. I asked a candidate where she went to school. “Columbia?” she replied. Or asked. “And you’re majoring in . . .” “English?” All her answers sounded like questions. Several other students did the same thing, ending declarative sentences with an interrogative rise. Something odd was happening. Was it guerrilla grammar? Had college kids fallen under the spell of some mad guru of verbal chaos? ….Ambiguity, evasion, and body language, such as air quotes — using fingers as quotation marks to indicate clichés — were transforming college English into a coded sign language in which speakers worked hard to avoid saying anything definite. I called it Vagueness.

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…. 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.