like silentbob more like obsess 020921 ... DammitJanet trying not to say it makes you long to say it. what is it about this word? like... like oh my god... okay like... he was like... then i was like... like, okay... i get so incredibly edgy when highschool girls fling like around like there's no other words to say. now i've typed it too much and it no longer makes any sense. but did it really make sense in the first place? like... no. 021201 ... pilgrim Is it used in this Fashion, to express the fact that what is being said goes beyond the scope of their Vocabulary? So that what ever word is used is only similar to the meaning intended, not an exact representation? Probablly Not. 021202 ... the swinger of birches like her...mandalay 021202 ... silentbob totally 050602 ... raze this word makes me want to scream sometimes, in the way it's emblematic of how few people there are who know how to speak or who care to try anymore. i can deal with the occasional out-of-place appearance, but it's gone beyond empty syntax and become a sort of widespread tourette's syndrome. i don't even understand where it comes from or why it persists. i don't remember people speaking this way when i was in grade school. maybe a little in high school, but not much. now it's everywhere. with every third person you meet, every fourth word they say is "like", regardless of their age or gender or life experience or life expectancy or level of education. "like i was like buying some like shoes, and like i saw my like friend there, and he was like, 'oh my god, you've like lost so much weight!' and i was like, 'it's so cool of you like say that.' and we like had like a moment there that was like so like cool." you were not LIKE. you SAID some words. you did not LIKE have a moment. you HAD a moment. and you did not LIKE do something. you DID it. when you're speaking in comparative or descriptive terms, then yes, a person or thing can be like something. someone can look like they're angry. they can sound like they're tired. the sky can look like it's about to rain. or you can like something or someone as an expression of affection. but, like, THERE'S NO LIKE REASON TO LIKE EVER LIKE SAY ANYTHING LIKE THIS. seriously. why? why would anyone do that? it makes no sense. some of these people are intelligent and must have some understanding of the language they've spent their whole lives speaking. so why they talk the way they do is beyond me. i don't know if they grew up hearing everyone talk this way, and so they mimicked it and were never corrected by anyone, or what. i only know it's everywhere, and it's driving me insane. the thing is, if you recorded someone abusing the word "like" in this way and then either played their voice back to them or transcribed what they said so they could read how absurd it looks as words on a page, i'm not so sure they would see anything wrong with it. they would probably just say, "well, like, that's the way people talk now." and they'd be right. and i think that's a little sad. words deserve more from us. 170617 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Oh! I will send you a poem I wrote about this word. It pokes gentle fun, but not at any particular target. I thoroughly enjoyed what you wrote, but perhaps for the wrong reason: you'll shake your head, but in my mind people USED to talk like this and now they don't, so reading this made me a tad nostalgic. Plus, I'm sure I've like-like-liked from a place of uncertainty or youthfulness before. Also, if you analyze it as an interjection, it's not, strictly, grammatically WRONG... Oh. But yes. Annoying. That I agree with. Jigglypuff doodlebrat, I'm nostalgic for all the wrong things. 170617 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Also, Christopher Hitchens wrote a pretty good essay about this word. Sidenote: I'm not endorsing Hitchens generally - when I read farther, he turned out to be an annoying pro-war Muslim-hating conservative. I don't know why I was so surprised. I guess I'd mistakenly figured that British + atheist = progressive politics... or at least coolness and scienceyness, like Douglas Adams. Related: the word "cool"? It's stuck around awhile. Not as annoying, though, I guess - people don't put it after every fourth word. 170617 ... raze i think it would be a little bit wonderful, in an absurd way, if something happened that caused people to say "interjection" in place of every "like", if only for a day. that would be funny. "i was interjection, 'don't touch me man.' and he interjection looked at me with interjection this expression of interjection intense calm and was all interjection, 'i'll do what i want.'" also, i like your poem. it almost makes me like like again. LIKE LIKE! OH GOD! IT'S GOT ME IN ITS CLUTCHES TOO NOW! 170617 ... raze overheard today: "well she was like she like said..." and then: "i like thought..." i enjoy reflection as well, but i know you didn't mean it that way, random person i hope i never hear speak again. 210309 what's it to you? who go blather from