The Economist ran an article about the overuse of the irritating word “like”, except that—strangely—the magazine didn’t seem all that irritated.
The article made the point that “like” is used by the younger generation as what is called a “discourse particle.”
That means it just a small bit of language used to hold a sentence together.
Which is fair enough.
But it is the way it’s used that can become annoying.
The so-called “Valley Girls” from the San Fernando Valley in California are supposed to have started the craze by saying such things as “It’s like five miles away…” or “He’s like a consultant…”
These are vague and pointless uses of the discourse particle.
Sometimes “like” is used to introduce a quote.
That gives us such deathless prose as “She was like ‘You can’t do that, and I’m like “Yes, I can.’”
This is not normal English construction.
(That use of “like” was popularised in Australia by the character of Kylie Mole played by Mary-Anne Fahey on the Comedy Company TV show.)
This use of “like” is sometimes thought to go back to the Beatnik era of the late 1950s and early 60s—the days when Maynard G. Krebbs, played by Bob Denver on The Doby Gillies Show, was saying things along the line of “Like, wow, man.”
We all of us use some discourse particles from time to time such as “so”, “but”, “then” and others.
The problem with like is that it appears to be like the only discourse particle this younger generation knows and so it is like used over and over and over again.
I suspect they’ll grow out of it as they grow older.
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