Maybe somewhat of a rant, but I need to get it off my chest. "Like" is the most over used, annoying term in the English language. I think the term has almost slipped into the sub conscientious minds and people seem to drop the word into sentences without even realizing it or what they sound like.
To illustrate my point, let me offer up the following. Since I live in what can be considered a college town and frequently rely on mass transportation to get back and forth to work, I often have the pleasure of riding the bus with students who are commuting back and forth from campus. (I don’t mean to imply that only students are guilty of the abuse this fine word, it’s just that they are the ones I’m exposed to the most.) Now, I don’t make it a habit to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations but sometimes given the proximity of folks next to you, it just can’t be helped. What I hear often astounds me. The following might be a little over the top in terms of the usage of this word and these folks were obviously not majoring in public speaking but, I gotta tell ya, it’s pretty darn close
Student 1 :” I was like, going to go to class yesterday but like, I forgot my like, books, so I like, had to go back and like, get them , but then I like, got like, hungry ya know, so I went to get something to eat but like, I was almost out of money so I figured like, maybe I’d just be better off eating at like, home, but then like, I had no like, decent food in the house and had to settle for like, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some like, luke warm milk.”
Student 2: Dude, that is so like, weird, same kinda thing happened to me like, the other day, but I like, borrowed like, ten bucks off my like, roommate, and went to like, Burger King and loaded up on like, burgers and fries but then I still had like, enough time to make it to class but it was like, so boring, that I like, dozed through most of it which like, sorta sucks because I gotta write like, this paper that’s due like, next week, and I don’t like, know when I’m gonna be able to pay my like, roommate back.
I also noticed that as I was writing this, it got very hard to follow but during the so-called “conversation” that I described, I hardly took notice. If you don’t believe it, try to transcribe a conversation verbatim and see how many times the word comes up and how hard it is to keep track of. I don’t know, maybe the eye picks up on all of the words while the ear has grown accustomed to tuning certain ones out. I find it like, fascinating.