As an experiment back in my teenage days, I tried to eliminate all ums, ehs, likes and pauses in my speech. More than anything, I loathed the vagueness and repetition of “I/he/she was like…”, or even just “like”. Hated the way my peers stumbled around every sentence as though they were only partially convinced they should be speaking at all.
—Jack Shedd, via marco
When I was in high school, I tried to do this, too, for a while. But eventually I realized that I actually love the word “like.” It’s a single syllable that’s both versatile and adds a casual friendliness to virtually any sentence. It’s degressive. It makes you sound a little more common-man. Like is, like, great.
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grammar
english
