We Americans have this need for “pause” words.  I don’t know if it’s because we’re so afraid someone might interrupt us or what, but we hate to have blank spaces in our speech. 

Teenagers use the word “like.”  Like, if teenagers couldn’t, like, use the word “like”, like, how could they possibly, like, communicate with, like, each other?

Back in my younger days, when we were really bored in class or something, we would sit and count how many times the professor said “um” in between words.  A whole hour would pass and I wouldn’t have remembered a thing he said, but I would know how many times he had said “um”.  One prof went beyond “um” and made a deep humming sound at the end of every sentence.  Being the juveniles we were, we absolutely couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying, but would die laughing every time he hummed.

Some people use the phrase “ya know” in place of “um”.  They say, “Go down to the end of the block, ya know, and turn left, ya know, then go about three miles, ya know.”  I always want to say, “No, I don’t,” but then they would just get confused.

The word “like” used to be only used by hippies and Maynard G. Creb types.  They would say stuff such as “like wow, man”.  You almost had to be on drugs to use the word “like”.

Not now, though.  A teenager, no matter how cool or dorky, good or bad, cannot say a single sentence without this word in it.  It takes forever to get a story out of them.

I have a great idea for all of us parents.  Next time your teenager is telling you a story, count the number of times he/she uses the word “like”.  When the huge smile that is building up inside you finally cracks across your face and your teenager looks at you weird because he/she can’t figure you out, just say:

“Like, I was, ya know, just, um, sitting here, ya know, just, like, listening to your, um, story, ya know, and like, I was, ya know, wondering, um, like, where, ya know, this, um, was, like, leading.  I’m, like, um, ya know, totally, um, like, lost.”

He will understand you perfectly.