By Nathaniel Whalen
Staff Writer

This is going to be like the best story that has ever been like written about the overuse of words like "like." No matter where you are, what time of day it is, who you’re with... it’s unavoidable. The word "like" has taken over the English language. 

"Like" used to be a word that people would use excessively to make fun other people who spoke like "Valley girls" and would say, "Like, you know, whatever." Now, whether it’s in class, conversation with peers or with adults, and in the most extreme cases written, the word ‘like’ is used excessively.

Some listeners are at a point where they can no longer hear anything that is being said other than the word ‘like’ because it dominates speech so often. In a Humanities class last semester the some students would keep tallies of the number of times that a fellow classmate, the "like girl," said the word ‘like’ when making comments in class.

"It got to the point where my notebook was covered in tally marks from counting up how many times she would use that damn word," said Paul Moore ’02, a student in the class who took part in the counting. "The average count per comment was around 17." 

‘Like’ is what psychologists call a ‘speech filler,’ it has no real use, but it is inserted into speech when there is nothing else to really say.

"It is lazy, sloppy speech, and doesn’t communicate anything," said Professor of Psychology Karl Scheibe. "It’s contagious, I even find myself falling into saying it time to time. It’s called a speech filler because it has the affect of filling silent spaces in speech, and because of this, it has begun to lose its meaning."

Although it is called a speech filler, it has dominated speech more than it has filled it. Recently, a student trying to tell a story to a friend was at such a loss for words that, when trying to compare two objects, she said, "it’s like . . . like . . . you know . . . like." 

In most cases, the word strictly is in vocal communication and doesn’t make it’s way onto anything written, but even that is beginning to change.

"My friend uses it all the time, she writes just like she speaks," said Michelle Burgos ’03. "When I talk with her on Instant Messenger, she writes down everything that would have said in person, so the word like appears a lot in our written conversations."

Though it appears to have a stranglehold on communication now, there was a point in time when the word ‘like’ did not dominate speech.

"It used to be an argot," Scheibe said. "An argot is a style of speech that is characteristic of a class or people, or any defined entity that gives them identity. It used to be an argot for the ‘Valley girls.’ But it’s been around for 20 years and it doesn’t seem to be going away."