As slight as this is I could cut this by about 100-150 words and lose none of its meaning, so he doesn't really dislike redundant speech, he's just scrabbling to fill space for money with a kneejerk opinion that was old hat 30 years ago, which coincidentally was when he was last popular.
crgn
The hill I will die on: I really don’t like ‘like’ – or other imprecise and redundant speech | Louis de Bernières