locobabel

In a vague segue from JR's post on ostentatious-yet-specious management terminology on IT projects, I think of two colloquial appendages that make me cringe. The first one is the use of "like" as an element of punctuation (usually a filler while your underfed brain constructs the next incomplete fragment of conversation). The second one is the use of the trailing "or whatever". This one makes no sense. It feels dismissive. It's like (wink! wink!) the speaker just presented a carefully thought out idea and then debunked the whole thing with an "or whatever" (also note the cadence at the end of the phrase, almost irksomely romantic). Bleargh! Could someone revive Joseph Lister so that he could fix me an antidote to palliate the effects of linguistic laceration?