Saved by Alex Burns
Why do we say “like,” like, all the time?
But, as impressively, she prompts her people to act originally by banning words such as like, love and hate, because, as a basic visceral response, they circumvent any critical thought. Saying why something is loved or hated inspires new, substantial ideas. She inspires originality in her people.”
First Round Capital • Adam Grant On Interviewing to Hire Trailblazers, Nonconformists and Originals
The problem with these words isn’t only their floating capacity to enrage but their contaminating quality. Once you hear a word, it’s “in” you. It has penetrated your ears and entered your brain, from which it can’t be selectively removed. Sometimes a phrase will pop into my head that I haven’t heard in years — holistic road map — and I will feel a
... See moreMolly Young • Why do corporations speak the way they do?
women are reliably ahead of the game when it comes to word-of-mouth linguistic changes.
Gretchen McCulloch • Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language
Linguists know that nonstandard forms of a language are not objectively “bad.” The grammatical forms themselves, like saying “he be”* instead of “he is,” are not inherently worse or better than what we learned in English class. They’re simply stigmatized based on how we feel about the type of person using them.