What is the language "British"?

[Jonathan Allen]

Timothy Murphy wrote:
> 
> I was taught 60 years ago never to write "lot", "got" or "nice",
> but that is a hard diet to follow.

But it is very good advice, nevertheless.  If more people took greater
care with their composition, language would not have deteriorated to
the degree to which it has.  Another good rule is never to end a sentence
with a preposition.

Two things really irritate me about current speech habits:

   1. the inability to finish a sentence (or even a thought); people
      will start a sentence four, five or more times, breaking off
      half-way through and starting again in different words or on a
      slightly different tack although, strangely enough, sometimes
      using exactly the same words all over again - and finally reaching
      some kind of conclusion, often qualified with "you know"

   2. the pernicious abuse of the word 'like', especially prevalent when
      coupled with some form of the verb to be; "it was like, you know"
      followed by some facial expression, "she was like, awesome" and
      its ilk; "I'm er like partied out"

Jonathan