Also, there is a difference between the natural fillers that we use unconsciously to pause, "uh" , and knowingly sounding like a high school cheerleader to endear yourself to peers. The overuse of "like "whatever" "awesome" "I'm 'so' not wearing those shoes" are exactly that. It's funny how the very movies that showed how stupid this speech sounds, Valley Girls, Clueless, have somehow helped in making it catch on. Like ugh.

Linguistic elitism? You've got to be kidding? We're not talking about dangling modifiers here, just overused and annoying speech patterns. I guess having any standard at all these days means you're an elitist. We have the self esteem movement to thank for that. No, standards, just whatever makes you feel good about yourself and your group. Ugh.