No, not you you, other people you. Cool your mammaries.
Because occasionally it’s nice to use a word that isn’t ‘like’ or the equally vague phrases ‘kind of’, sort of’, etc. This is yet another thing that drove me bonkers when I was student teaching — students would get up to do a design presentation and stutter and like and um and maybe their way through it. (The ladies especially, but that’s a rant for another day. Probably.) Listen, I understand that public speaking is crazy scary, but the problem for me is not the stuttering or getting lost from fear but the unwillingness to stand behind your ideas. If you’re telling me that you want to design a production of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ set in Imperial Japan, then great, I’ll go with it, but SELL me on it. Don’t say you’re doing it because you ‘like Japanese clothes? And, um, I thought maybe I’d use the colour red a lot, because I like red?’. Tell me that you’re in love with the period; you’re enthused about the setting; red feels passionate and vibrant and strong to you (ideally also tell me why that place and time and colour help tell the story), but don’t use the namby-pamby get out of jail free card of ‘like’. I like cheese, but I’m not designing a show around it. (Okay, I admit it — I love cheese. I might marry cheese.)
Anyway, I gave this whole rant to the class, and then one of the little darlings had the temerity to tell me that they didn’t know that many words because they were only in college and didn’t have that kind of vocabulary yet. And then I stabbed myself in the eyes like Oedipus wept inwardly. So, J (student J, not awesome J) and others of your ilk, get a fucking thesaurus. . . and then a dictionary, because if you don’t know what the synonym really means, you’re just going to get in even more trouble, you undereducated lackadaisical shithead.
Wheeeee! rant.
Neurotic Owl 