It’s a Tuesday morning and the ‘Roaring Twenties’ English class isn’t exactly roaring. The discussion—on a short story about two girls from the ’20s—has some of the class yawning and others processing their ideas:

“But, like, the inconsistency of them, like, being able to achieve all of these goodies and, like, lead sort of, like, a lazy life, but also, like, maintain their figure, so it’s, like, I guess that sort of goes along with, like, the inconsistency…” said one student, “And then they try to, like, introduce the game to, like, a woman at work who, like, pokes fun at the game, and then they’re like, okay, you’re out, and sort of, like, separate these two worlds.”

Like, whew.

Why did we start using this word “like” to fill our silences? As research may show, it helps us “soften” our statements.

“It’s just, while you’re thinking, you’re insecure,” said the student, who asked to be anonymous. “You have to fill the silence.”

It goes further than that, though. Theresa DiDonato, a former professor of social psychology at Brown, says the issue of conformity plays a large role in our choice of language. “It makes sense,” she says, “that [like] peaks around high school, because of issues of conformity and fitting in with peers.”

High school, and even middle school, were times in which our own image was very important, and even our choices of language have an effect on that image.

Role models and cultural influences have great influence on young people as well. Child development professor Mika MacInnis calls the phenomenon “inherently reinforcing.” We’re told — largely by the media, in the form of, say,  TV shows, whose ‘real teen dialogue’ includes the lovely word—that this is how people our age are supposed to sound, so we unconsciously change our patterns to fit this. Using the word in all its glory is not only practical and easy for teens, it’s behavioral imitation, says MacInnis.

DiDonato says it’s all about who we surround ourselves with. “I don’t think people would grow out of it if they stayed in the same context,” she suggests. In other words, when entering transitional phases, such as leaving school for the business world, individuals make a concerted effort to restrain their habits. Thus, there is the perception that adults have grown out of “like.”

Then again, everyone is capable of putting on different voices, accents, or speech habits when the time is necessary. This is what linguistic anthropologist Marcy Brink-Danan, calls a synchronic language change. The development of speech patterns doesn’t change over time; rather, people gain the ability to alter their speech when necessary—this is why, for example, you know not to drop F-bombs around your grandma, or, in this case, why you probably use “like” less in, say, an interview.

So the fact that people associate “like” with young people may simply be that cultural norms do not require us to censor our speech. The young person’s “language ideology,” says Brink-Danan, has come to be associated with “like.”

Many different cultures (languages)—including English—have filler words. Even English has a multitude of options. What is it about “like” in particular that has made it so durable and so widely used?

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Paja Faudree suspects it’s simply a very efficient word. “It keeps on enduring,” she said. “I keep expecting ‘like’ to fall of the map.” It doesn’t, though, and she says it probably has to do with the word’s multitude of uses. “My suspicion is that [like] is much more structured and content-filled.”

Indeed, the uses of “like” vary from a simple filler word to a way to introduce a quotation or thought to a means of adding emphasis to an adjective. And of course, it goes quite well with the infamous “ya know?” With all those uses, it becomes possible to use the word sixteen times in one sentence.

Like’s versatility has become impossible to ignore, and its function has made teachers realize that it’s a reality. “It’s not necessarily evidence for inarticulateness,” says Faudree. (Whew.)

Brown students seem to have similar notions of the word as the adults who surround them. The student, who we’ll call Molly, offers this: “Like actually has meaning,” she said. “It’s, like, a comparison word.”

“I tried to stop using it,” Molly says. “It makes you sound less smart and intelligent.” She admits that many have called her out on her use of the word, and her entrance into college has forced her to censor her speech at times. The same probably holds true for most of us. “We’re [freshmen] adapting to, like, a more adult way to, like, express ourselves.”

Molly too says it’s a cultural thing. “It’s just, like, the vernacular of, like, where we’re from and just, like, our generation.”

At a late afternoon lunch in the Brown’s dining hall, three female first-years and one male sit around one of the square tables.

“I was reading this article about speaking well,” says one first-year, Liza Schmidt. “Instead of saying ‘like,’ just pause and collect your thoughts.”
Schmidt has had her own issues with her (over)use of the word. “My adviser won’t let me say it,” she said. “During our first meeting, he was like, ‘no like, NO LIKE.’” Schmidt remained practically silent the rest of the meeting.

Most of the people at the table said their parents gave them a hard time about using like. One claimed that her older sister was even stricter. “Her college professors gave her a hard time, so when she came home she was always really conscious of it,” says Jenny Gold, a first-year.

But most of them agree that it becomes awkward to use alternatives to like in many contexts: “Who’s going to say ‘she exclaimed’ or ‘he remarked?’”

“College is an interesting time,” concludes Gold, “’cause, like, people are trying, like, not to say like.”