What’s Not to Like About ‘Like’? Lots

By Linda Hall. Students clearly tend to like “like.” But can they be weaned? First, though, let’s check in with a few grown-ups.
John McWhorter, in a New York Times article (“Like, Degrading the Language? No Way”), argues that the word “often functions to acknowledge objection while underlining one’s own point. … What’s actually happening is that casual American speech is, in its ‘like’ fetish, more polite than it was before.” More...