Like! Like!! Like!!! It Is A Virus, A Cancer, A Killer Of Erudition

If you say “like” a lot, it makes you seem perhaps younger and hipper and in touch with the prevailing ethos. Jeffrey A. Tucker feels that no matter the underlying motivation—fear, obscurantism, the desire to fit in, the deliberate dumbing down of high-level erudition, the longing for seeming youth—this habit is eating away at the dignity of language itself. Sloppy speaking permissions sloppy thinking, and it works the other way too: when people stop thinking clearly they stop speaking clearly. This creates a reinforcing cycle of decline. Purging the word “like” from your vocabulary, unless absolutely necessary and appropriate, should be part of that for every civilized person of any age

- Jeffrey A. Tucker

A word has invaded and taken over the casual speaking of several generations under the age of 40. It is so common that hardly anyone who deploys it, no matter how incessantly, even notices it anymore. We are so used to hearing it that we do not even hear it. Or at least we try not to.

Once you do hear it, it is impossible to hear anything else. The people who use it might as well not be speaking at all because the word is so invasive and hegemonic. It must be stopped lest we discontinue all clear communication. It is a virus, a cancer, a killer of erudition. It reduces everyone who is infected to a babbling fool. The word is: “like.” To understand the context and the way it is used these days, I will offer a typical example.

“I woke up so like thirsty so I was like where’s my water? But I looked in the fridge and it was like empty because people drank it up last night. Everyone was like where is the water so I can like drink it? So like suddenly it was gone but like no one said anything to me. So I’m like dudes like cut it out with the water thing, cause like without water, we are like dying over here. Whatever. I’m like ok, I’ll turn on the tap and like fill up a glass on my own. I’m like soooo thirsty I’ll like do anything literally. So I’m just like chugging away and thinking like sheesh omg I’m already like literally better.”

The word “like” appears here 18 times. And yet if you asked the speaker how many times he or she said the word “like,” he or she would have no idea what you mean. If you wanted to phrase this supposed story in English, you might say: “I woke up thirsty but there was no cold water in the fridge. My friends drank it all last night. Instead I drank a glass of tap water.”