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    CheqyrRachel Vorona Cote
    5/01/16 9:34pm

    Rather than condemn millennials—and those, shall we say, contaminated by them—for shirking “responsibility” through discourse, let’s acknowledge our more pressing duty: to stop policing speech, and instead welcome the voices clamoring to be heard.

    Female, male or intersex; black, white, or other; 1% or 99%, the only way to overcome our differences is through the open exchange of our views and ideas.

    Phrases like “I think” and “I feel” are ways of saying implicitly that you understand that your viewpoint is not universal truth; that you understand that others may have differing opinions.

    At least that’s what I think. ;-)

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      Rachel Vorona CoteCheqyr
      5/01/16 9:54pm

      I feel strongly that you make a great point. ;-)

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      jemandthehologramsCheqyr
      5/01/16 10:09pm

      Except when you start every sentence with a phrase that implies it’s an opinion, people deny facts. It’s why you get a ‘everyone is entitled to an opinion’ phenomenon including things like anti-vaxers and evolution deniers.

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    Jigglypuff.Rachel Vorona Cote
    5/01/16 9:24pm

    Hmm. Interesting. My boss recently told me that I come across as too aggressive, so in order to “make people want to work with me” I should hedge more. And the exact example she gave was: instead of saying “This is a problem” I should say “I feel like maybe this could be a problem.”

    tl;dr my female manager has been brainwashed and has totally bought into hedging as a positive trait.

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      vraimentJigglypuff.
      5/01/16 9:26pm

      head*desk

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      Desperate for a Shag GilesJigglypuff.
      5/01/16 9:31pm

      I find myself doing that all the time. “I think...” or “I feel...” or “I’m not sure but...” Basically qualifying my knowledge. Also trying to explain why or how I know something (I learned that in school, read it somewhere, etc.) instead of just stating what I know. I hate it and try to catch myself when I do it. I already get “know it all” accusations though.

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    Della, Queen of Dancing StarsRachel Vorona Cote
    5/02/16 12:10am

    As a TA, I hear these kind of statements from my students a lot, but I don’t see it as a big deal. They’re just using “I feel” as a replacement for “I think.” And despite what Worthan argues, it’s not impossible to correct or build upon these statements. If I can do it with less than a year of teaching experience under my belt, any professor can do it.

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      Rachel Vorona CoteDella, Queen of Dancing Stars
      5/02/16 12:16am

      Yeah, in writing I urge my students to be as precise as they can when articulating a point, but when it comes to speaking in class or informal assignments, I’m not concerned with how they preface their ideas unless it’s clear that there’s some sort of problem. And I absolutely agree that you can build upon your “feeling” in regards to something — in fact that’s often a great way to move into more critical thinking.

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      YouhavenorighttobeangryDella, Queen of Dancing Stars
      5/02/16 1:33am

      Thank you. I am also a TA (three weeks away from my doctorate) and I have taught college classes for years. “I feel like” is merely an expression. It means, “I think.” Just as “I was like” is an expression that means “I said” or “I felt.” People (mostly men) who pretend that they don’t understand these phrases, or that they are charged in some way by the affect that the words, out of context, imply are assholes. They always have an ulterior motive for objecting to others’ speech. And most of the time, it is to silence women. Who uses “I feel like” and “I was like”? Mostly women, and also a few other groups. (And honestly, lots of white straight waspy guys too, but they will never be called out for it.) But these expressions are NOT a sign of equivocation or passivity. They are just dialectical. If you honestly find them so distracting that they hurt your ability to follow a conversation then you are the one with the intellectual problem.

      I agree, by the way, with the professor that “lived experience” is overprivileged at certain moments in academia. But I know too much about language to believe that these expressions are a “symptom” of that.

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    $7CoffeeRachel Vorona Cote
    5/01/16 9:36pm

    I only use “I feel like” when I’m about to talk shit or I actually have no evidence to back what I’m saying and what I’m saying is actually just a guess/feeling. Example: I feel like this bar will just be more fun than that bar tonight.

    I’m a millennial and it’s a very common speech pattern, especially for those of us who were taught conflict resolution-type workshops in grade school where they literally teach you to equivocate and make “I-focused” statements when confronting people.

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      accesscode$7Coffee
      5/01/16 9:58pm

      It’s the right thing to do, actually.

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      Bernd$7Coffee
      5/01/16 10:10pm

      I try to only say it when I’m in a work meeting and I know that people are being dumbasses and don’t really like to hear what is actually going on, so I try to soften the blow and throw out an ‘opinion’ so that maybe they’ll take everything together and come to a good decisions themselves. My coworkers are too quick to react to things so they can’t deal with ‘dudes this is dumb’ or they dig their heels in and stop listening. So ‘feels’ and ‘thinks’ come out.

      It’s a goddamn stupid dance that I HATE doing but it’s been more effective at getting shit done.

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    Mary, Queen of ScoffsRachel Vorona Cote
    5/01/16 10:12pm

    It is not a “millennial” thing. People often use “I feel” as a qualifier when they have less power than the person they are speaking to - and are afraid of being shut down or dismissed. Most often, I hear it when someone is speaking to their boss or someone who has more authority in the work place.

    I agree that saying “I feel” is not the most persuasive communication - but it is not coming from academic coddling or some other recursive academic phenomena. Women have been taught to couch and downplay their assertions since my grandmother’s day. She would say something like, “Well some people might think you are tacky if you wear white before Easter” or similar - so she was herself not taking a stand and did not have to argue for the position she was taking. This is nothing new.

    Language matters, so this is a good topic for discussion - but laying the blame for couching language like “I feel” on “coddled millennials” is inaccurate and unhelpful.

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      jpomonkeyMary, Queen of Scoffs
      5/01/16 10:23pm

      Agreed.

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      Amy HousewineMary, Queen of Scoffs
      5/01/16 10:53pm

      What your grandmother was doing was being passive-aggressive, which describes many - by no means all - other uses of “I feel” or “it seems like maybe” or “I guess you could say.”

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    emfish55Rachel Vorona Cote
    5/01/16 11:10pm

    My favorite professor at my big state university, way back in the year 2000, taught me not to say “I feel like” to preface an intellectual argument, for basically the reasons cited here. He told me to have more faith in my arguments, and to be ready to accept criticism of it because that’s what a thoughtful debate of ideas looks like.

    A few years later, my favorite law school professor made the same point and demanded that we avoid equivocating phrases like this when we responded to questions in class.

    A decade later, I can tell you that I never use the phrase “I feel like” in a work context unless I am actually discussing feelings. I am not always the most confident person on the planet, but I have learned well how to assert myself and discuss ideas like an adult, and this was truly a big part of it. It doesn’t have anything to do with millenials or ivory tower intellectuals. It’s part of learning how to discuss ideas.

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      Codename_SailorVemfish55
      5/02/16 12:22am

      I am not always the most confident person on the planet, but I have learned well how to assert myself and discuss ideas like an adult, and this was truly a big part of it.

      Like an adult, really? The idea that adopting the more aggressive, stereotypically masculine speaking style over the more equivocating, traditionally more feminine speaking style is learning to speak “like an adult” is gross and infantilizing. Many people, especially women and men of color, have developed the habit of softening their language out of necessity. That doesn’t mean they’re speaking like children.

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      thewicked.Codename_SailorV
      5/02/16 5:24am

      THIS. ALL OF THIS. Hell, women are EXPLICITLY told to start prefacing their points with this kind of bullshit language, so as to not hurt the delicate feelings of men with their tyrannical female “aggressiveness” by being direct, like a man would. There are tons of examples in the comments. Direct = adult people that deserve to be noticed, but not “females”, god forbid. Women being people is scary.

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    SarsAttacksRachel Vorona Cote
    5/01/16 10:35pm

    Academic condemns students “feeling” things as “tyranny.” The irony is rich and buttery.

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      Anneke OosterinkSarsAttacks
      5/02/16 3:03am

      It also sounds like “the language is changing and since my version is obviously the only correct version, anything that’s different is wrong.” *sigh* Maybe he could take a seminar at the linguistics department?

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      SarsAttacksAnneke Oosterink
      5/02/16 3:23am

      They’d probably find descriptivists about as reassuring as other (shockhorror) relativists, seeing as they, like our tyrannical millennials with their peach-freezing content warnings, recognize human speech (and behavior, and values, by gum!) as individual, sensory, impermanent, and subjective, testable and measurable and sometimes definable and codifiable in the short term perhaps, but by imperfect and fleeting means.

      I find these days shrieking “woke bae” at them to be a good enough talisman for warding off cloud-yellers and lawn-keepers.

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    gorgeousgRachel Vorona Cote
    5/01/16 9:36pm

    Interesting. I know I say “I feel like” a lot but I think it’s more a product of having been in therapy for so many years. Anyone else?

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      phubsgorgeousg
      5/02/16 1:01am

      Seriously. How many times-in therapy, in advice columns, in Cosmo, wherever- have we been encouraged to use this phrase with our partners/friends/family when dealing with our relationship issues? It’s a non-combative phrase for a reason.

      I just don't know what's right anymore.

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      Hysterical Paroxysmsgorgeousg
      5/02/16 6:16am

      Me too!

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    Another_Cow_PalaceRachel Vorona Cote
    5/01/16 9:45pm

    Eh. “I feel like,” is more or less used by people to mean the same thing as “In my opinion,” or “I think,” and, while all of these phrases are meant to express a less than 100% confident stance toward the statement one is making, they are pragmatically used as polite ways to introduce potentially conflict-creating ideas. These other phrases were once used more frequently but are now being displaced by “I feel like,” but the discourse strategy is essentially the same: They are a way of saying, “Here’s this thought, but I’m not asserting it to be the absolute truth.” Women use these phrases more because we’re socialized to not be so assertive, but people tend to use these kinds of pragmatic discourse strategies in any situation in which they worry about the potential for conflict to arise. “I feel like,” doesn’t “shut down” the possibility of raising a counter-argument, it merely challenges us to present such an argument in an equally polite way. It also, by signaling humility, even submission, on the part of the speaker, challenges the listener to not be so quick in dismissing whatever thought follows behind “I feel like.” Maybe *that’s* the feeling that Dr. Worthan and other folks are reacting to: we want to be able to react to something another person has to say without having to worry about hurting their feelings or not. But paying attention to other people’s feelings isn’t some kind of new-fangled distraction produced by our emerging culture of victimhood or whatever, it’s actually pretty basic manners. We all learned this in kindergarten and our grandparents were real sticklers about it: “If you can’t say anything nice...”

    I’d say the motto for today should be, “If you can’t patiently listen to someone express their thoughts and then, finding yourself to be in disagreement with them, make a bit of an effort to them assert *your* thoughts in a polite way, then stop kidding yourself about wanting to engage in a discussion. What you want is to engage in a monolog.”

    Of course, people who preface their statements with “I feel like,” aren’t necessarily good listeners or polite conversationalists, themselves. Sometimes we just mindlessly ape each other’s speech patterns.

    It’s language, folks: don’t take the words so literally.

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      MujerAnother_Cow_Palace
      5/01/16 10:17pm

      So much this and an addendum would be language freaking changes in it’s usage and words used. I want a study of how “I feel” is used in class discussions.

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      Anneke OosterinkAnother_Cow_Palace
      5/02/16 3:22am

      Thank you! All these people condemning language use. *sigh*People do what they’ve been doing for for ever, speaking and being social. Perhaps a mandatory intro to linguistics needs to be added to the curriculum.

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    accesscodeRachel Vorona Cote
    5/01/16 9:57pm

    Whatever. It’s good edgy copy to say being disrespectful of other people is a good thing and the heck with any amount of thoughtfulness. How shocking and “refreshing!” Let’s be assholes!

    But, when one thinks critically, one often realizes that what he or she feels or thinks isn’t based in fact, but in opinion. In that case, “I feel” becomes the right way to say things because that’s what your opinion amounts to—your feelings about something, occasionally wrapped in facts, but not as often as it probably should be.

    In other words, if you’re going to say, “I know” you better effing know. You better have some facts to back up your claims, if you are in the classroom. It better not just be your opinion.

    Good discourse is made up of people with the ability to listen to each other (not that you’d know by most internet convos), and a good class structure helps everyone participate, not just the ones that go wrong with confidence, usually white men.

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