Remember when I restarted my legendary ShitList a few weeks ago? You don’t? Maybe THIS will jog your memory. Unfortunately not too many things are pissing me off these days so the ShitList probably won’t be making a regularly-scheduled appearance. I do, however, have one item that should be on a list like that.

It’s the use of the word “like.”

Proper use = the last sentence of my first paragraph in this post: “I do, however have one item that should be on a list like that.” In that instance, “like” means similar. A list similar to my ShitList is what I was saying. It makes sense.

Improper use = this sentence that I heard a woman in my writing class say last week: “Like, this is like based on a girl who like drank like 20 beers at a party one night, and she like started throwing up on like everything in the house.” Six “likes” in that 31-word sentence. I especially liked her ability to use “like” as the bread to a word sandwich with “drank” as the meat…”like drank like”…that’s poetry.

Anyway, this isn’t a new phenomenon…I know that. But I’m thinking it might be more prevalent in LA and especially around women. People who are good at speech and talking (clearly I’m not one of them) will say that “like” is used as a filler word, sometimes replacing “uhh” or “umm” when a person isn’t quite sure what they’re going to say next. My advice to these premature talkers is to shut the fuck up until you know exactly what you want to say. It’s not difficult. But it does make sense that women would be worse offenders here because generally speaking they feel the need to talk more frequently, and they also tend to tell longer, more boring stories. This gives them much more of like an opportunity to need filler words.

Anyway, if I hear too many more sentences similar to the one my classmate said, I’m gonna like, throw like, a chinese star like through like someone’s head. You like that?