You know, like, I just can’t take it anymore!

They’re dropping like flies. First it appeared as Valley Girl speech. Then it burst into the language of everyone I know under the age of 40. Then I read famous people, over the age 40 saying it in New York Time’s interviews. Now I hear it from Ira Glass on “This American Life.” And Terri Gross on “Fresh Air.” And finally, it’s there in a 65 year old acquaintance who I thought was a generation removed and inured to such linguistic drivel. But, “you know, like” this is how we talk now and if you think it’s weird and perverse and grating and a bastardization of the English language then go get a life.

I went online to see what other folks are saying about this phenomenon. There’s a ridiculous article in the Huffington Post that tries to defend the usage as a “discourse marker” used by thoughtful people. Countering that are the researchers at Michigan StateUniversity who claim people who use the word “Like” to start a sentence are not only perceived as less intelligent but as less friendly to boot! The website wikiHow provides ten steps to stop saying it. 

I listened to a show on Fresh Air where a linguist from Stanford defended both the use of “vocal fry”—saying words in a creaky, low-pitched way—and “up-speak”, where you end a declarative sentence by raising your voice like you are asking a question (the use of “like” in this sentence is legit, by the way, meaning “as if”) as part of the evolution of language. When I first noticed “up-speak” quite a few years ago I thought it had something to do with living in California because the only people I know who speak that way live there. I suppose this California linguist would also defend “You know, like,” as another step in this evolutionary pattern. A lot of folks in California also think there is no evolutionary progress, only relativity, so I guess you could say, relatively speaking, like, what does it matter?

One of my sons lets me call him on it. The other one tells me, “Get over it.” But when someone starts in with the “you know, like” or “like, you know” I get so distracted by the so-called “discourse markers” that I can’t pay attention to what they’re actually trying to say. But maybe this is just another step in the evolutionary process of replacing direct communication with virtual, so it’s like, all good. Except that it isn't.