They, Like, Just Can’t Stop Saying That Word

“Can I go get my textbook? It’s like in my locker,” said Monica.

“Where is it really?” I asked her.

Anyone who spends much time with teenagers has noticed their unfortunate use of the word “like” outside the parameters of affection or comparison. As a high school teacher, I probably hear more than 100 superfluous “likes” a day.

For instance: “Do you have like a pencil I can borrow?” Craig asked me. I handed him a ballpoint pen. “But I need a pencil!” he exclaimed. “You asked for something like a pencil,” I replied.

Feeling duty-bound to correct this embarrassing linguistic lapse, I tried to humorously illustrate to students how silly they sound when they, like, speak this way. My approach didn’t work. Consider the response I got from Jessica, who described her family’s trip to Washington, D.C.

“My favorite part was when we went to see, like, the Supreme Court,” Jessica said. “I thought you saw the real Supreme Court,” I chided. Jessica stared, puzzled. “That’s what I said,” she retorted.

So I decided to up the ante with some of my sophomores, who seem especially grammatically challenged. I offered to award 10 extra points each to their final exam scores if they could make it until the end of the term without more than 10 extra-grammatical “likes.”

Drew, pessimistic about the group’s chances but eager for the extra credit, instantly devised a strategy to get the points. “Nobody say anything from now on!” he ordered his classmates, who broke out in laughter.

They agreed to try, though. That day I noticed Tiffani stop and furrow her brow as she thought through a sentence before speaking. “What do we have for homework this week?” Tiffani asked slowly, in possibly the most grammatical sentence she’s spoken this term. Then she sighed in relief and cried, “That was so hard!”

Our resident wiseacre, Harris, tried his best to set off my alarm. “I like ... that video we watched, Mr. Jo,” he said with a smirk. “Not bad,” I told him. But they didn’t win the points. Some students quickly forgot the challenge and slipped back into old habits, and others sabotaged the experiment for a joke. “Like, we’re never gonna make it!” cracked John.

They needed to last 15 days until the fall semester ended. They reached their 10th “like” on the first day in about 15 minutes.

I was sorry they didn’t at least make it interesting and offered to let them try again with more favorable rules. “Forget it, Mr. Jo,” said one. “It’s like impossible.”

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Matt Johanson is a high school social studies teacher and a freelance journalist in Castro Valley.