Is valley girl accent grammatically correct?

If a foreigner spoke like that, I’d be confused, thinking they must either think they’re being funny or they must think this is appropriate to speak this way, even though nobody else does.

@jca I’m sure some people do talk like this in US, if not only the typical, real valley girls.

@Unofficial_Member: Yes, but the average person around my area does not, so if a foreigner were to speak that way, I’d be wondering where or how they picked it up, or if they mistakenly think it’s the way to talk.

Even in the valley this kind of talk died in the 90’s

Is it grammatically correct? No. And you know that.

So what is the purpose of the question? The purpose of this question is for you to see if you can gain popular support as a foreigner to speak our language poorly. You won’t find that here or in many places IRL. Most people will think you suffer from a personality disorder, that something is wrong with you.

In light of this, maybe the cultural geniuses at 4-chan can give you the affirmation that you want. Good luck.

My opinion: Anyone who purposely butchers the language just to seem cool is an annoying asshole. I’m far from alone in this sentiment. Fair warning.

I avoid people who use a lot of slang, especially an affectatious mode of speech like “valley girl”. We all use a little slang, but using a favorite expression or phrases one grew up with is different than affecting a way of speaking. If you want to impress, try to use the language correctly.

It reminds me of Borat, in the movie Borat, when he hands out with some black guys and then goes into the fancy hotel talking like a black guy. It looked totally ridiculous (and was totally hilarious, in my opinion).

I realized that when people with strong enough foreign accents used colloquial terms and pronunciations, I wouldn’t understand it because my mind is so fixated on the way they’re speaking with their current accent. Basically, I don’t expect it, and I’ve never heard it been said with such a pronunciation, so it doesn’t register.

Nobody should ever develop this affectation, for any reason. Habits die hard, and vocal tics emerge when someone’s nervous or under stress. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people, some of them in or approaching middle age, start to say “like…like…like” during business presentations and client meetings. In difficult circumstances, it’s normal to revert to what’s familiar and comforting. What a disaster when those safe harbors make a person sound idiotic.

Haha we have people you talk like that in Dublin. Well a particular part of Dublin. Their accent is like a cross between Irish and American.

It reminds me of a radio interview on one of our late night talk shows. A lot of Dublin 4 listeners were calling it

“Well like this is what happens like, it was unbelievable like. Do you do what I mean like? Like this always happens like.”

The presenter got pissd off with all the “likes” so he hung up on them haha

And it’s not grammatically correct at all like.

I can’t actually recall a time in my life that I’ve ever heard someone seriously talk like that.

I say ‘like’ a lot. It gets on my nerves, actually. Probably primarily because it’s been jammed down our throats as wrong. I think I use it more as a way to paraphrase, rather than a filler, though. Less “Like, who likes to eat cheese, like, that’s so yesterday, like, you know, duh! Like, seriously!” More “So @NerdyKeith was like——.”

At least now I know these lots of “likes” are called fillers. Not that I’m sure that it will make a grammar wrong, since it’s just, an addition, after all.

@Espiritus_Corvus No, I don’t know, or more likely, I’m not entirely sure.

My gosh! Judging from the angry tone of your writing, are you, like, having a personal vendetta against people who try to, like, speak in a unique way?

@Unofficial_Member So, you’re saying it’s “unique” to imitate peers, adopt a too-common verbal crutch, and speak that way?

I live in a foreign country. I have had to learn a new language to get along here. I’ve had to adopt a local dialect to fit in better. Adopting some odd affectation would not be endearing. I would sound more like someone who wasn’t capable of signing contracts and needed ‘qualified adult supervision’.

“Oh my gosh!”
– grammatically ok

“Like, who likes to eat cheese, like, that’s so yesterday, like, you know, duh!”
– several issues for strict grammatical correctness, unless you accept Valley Girl as the norm.
* “Like” is just an invented almost-meaningless interjection, so not really grammatically incorrect, just dialect.
* “who likes to eat cheese” – content is ridiculous but grammatically should be punctuated with a question mark and a new sentence, not a comma.
* “that’s so yesterday” – should end with a period. Changing meanings of words is slang/dialect rather than grammatically incorrect, but it also annoys people with more developed language skills because it is so minimal in its meanings and so high in its assumptions and the speaker’s assertion of rightness about something so vapid.
* “you know, duh!” – again slang and nearly-meaningless assertion combined with implied assertion that if you don’t agree with the near-meaningless assertion, you are the mentally deficient one. But not strictly grammatically incorrect (except “duh!” was recent-ish slang in 1980–84).

“Like, seriously!”
– grammatically sort of ok

As for what I’d think if a foreigner were talking Valley Girl? I’d probably think it was a hilarious phenomenon, and (intentionally or not) a well-deserved ironic commentary on American culture and its spread. It seems to me that Valley Girl works best when being ironic and sarcastic, and can be funny in moderation, but that it also has a hard time communicating more than reactions to things and sometimes passive aggression, and a way to avoid actually saying anything with direct content in it. It can easily annoy people and provoke negative opinions.

So, as a joke in moderation, it may be very funny.

As a way of being all the time, it’s slightly horrifying.

@Love_my_doggie I mainly use it in my own country (could be seen as a cool accent, and a good way to popularize it as well). You know what they say, the neighbor’s grass always greener.

@Zaku I can’t thank you enough for your detailed evaluation! A very exemplary reply, indeed.

quotative like

^^^ The quotative like is just more annoying than the quotative go/goes.

So, I go, “How are you,” and he goes, “I’m good,” and I go, “Want some coffee,” and he goes, “No, thank you.”