When Too Many 'LIKES' is Not a Style of Communication that I Like

A glimpse of local mindset: listening to local talk

My previous experiences living out of my home country taught me some things. To really integrate as a local, we need to listen to local talk by real locals. This takes place in the most mundane and unassuming setting like the supermarket, the local shops and metro trains. It is not about the accent, it about how a simple, daily matter is being expressed verbally by a local. Many times I find the best way to get a glimpse of the psyche of a different culture is when I ask for directions or clarifications on operational matters. 

I find that in a dozen occasions, the answer does not come in a forthright manner. From checking airport shuttle over the phone, to asking for the correct platform to take the metro train, to asking for assistance at the self check-out counter at Giant Supermarket, I had thought that the way I phrased my question would only require an answer of ‘yes’ or ‘no’, or an answer that need no more than four words. Each time the answer would not be straight forward, and often is a piece of side information that does not address the question. I believe it is a cultural difference in the use of English language. 

It's like this, it's like that...But what exactly do you mean?

The fact that we stay in an undergraduate accommodation complex, at The Varsity, has given me a chance to listen to the undergraduate residents' chats in the elevator, at the student union cafe and on the UM shuttle bus. The talk is often lengthy description of scenarios and feelings. The descriptions are littered with some form of incomplete analogies. For example, in describing one's displeasure over another's behaviour, instead of saying ‘I was irritated with his bluntness’, the undergraduate would say ‘I was like....really, really not happy with the way like.. he said…….. ……. and he was like …… ..... ...... and it was like...... ...... ...... ’. 

The word ‘like’ is profusely used in conversations, and more often, one such description requires a good three minutes to bring across some sort of a point, which could easily have been made with greater clarity in thirty seconds if all the 'like... this and that..' are replaced with real adjectives. The style and habit in the use of verbal language is expansive, repetitively rhetorical rather than efficient and effective. I find that there is a similarity in the lack of proper adjectives in the use of Mandarin by teenagers in Singapore.

However, I have observed the tendency to speak in such voluminous rigmarole of analogies significantly reduces in professional adults. To set it in context, my adults contacts here in Maryland are basically teachers. Well, at least that is more assuring, as I cannot imagine what teaching will become if all the teachers use the word ‘like’ fifty to seventy times in explaining a concept in a 45-minute lesson.

  Seriously, I

 too many 

in a conversation.

When too few words frustrates just the same
In a stark contrast, many of the youngsters in Singapore do not speak with clarity because of the deficit in proper word usage. I have had far too many students asking for assistance or advice with minimal number of words, in incomplete sentences or broken phrases. Many of them neither illustrate nor elaborate what they were trying to express and I have had to probe repeatedly before I know what they were asking or requesting, and that is also equally frustrating.

There has got to be some balance somewhere.

Till I write again....