Watch an old movie or TV show made anywhere from the earliest days of Hollywood to sometime around the mid 1980s. Pay close attention to how the people in the old show are speaking. Besides the obvious differences in speech patterns and slang phrases, one thing jumps out at me every time I see an old program from those bygone eras; the fact that NOBODY, young or old, used the word “like” twenty times in a sentence the way people today do! Here is a typical verbal communication from someone today : “Like, I was, like, walking down the street, and like, I didn’t see the truck, like, speeding, and like, I had to, like, jump out-of-the-way to keep from, like, getting run over, and like, killed……like!” Oh, how eloquently put! A shear master of verbal communication skills! Yes, our public school system should certainly be proud of the job they’re doing! Like, it’s amazing…..like!
So what is the cause of this seeming obsession that people today have with the word “like”? Well, in the 1980’s, the popularization of excessively using the word “like” probably started with the Valley Girl culture in Southern California, and the subsequent teen movie that was made about it. Anyone who was young in the 80s remembers the phrases “gag me with a spoon”, and “fur sure”. One aspect of Valley Girl lingo was using the word “like” repetitively in a sentence. There is an old adage in sociology that what usually starts as an urban fad or trend eventually becomes a full-blown part of mainstream culture. Somehow, the process of being unable to communicate a complete thought without interjecting the word “like” between almost every other word has actually become acceptable.
Okay, eh hem,… I’m learning to communicate in the modern era: Like, I really enjoy, like, blogging. Like, it’s a great, like, outlet, like, for anyone who is, like, creative, or just wants to, like, share their thoughts and, like, ideas.
Like, thanks for, like, reading……like!
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