Like, An Analysis
So, like, I’m talking to my mom during one of our weekly phone calls about a news story I read on the internet about how this guy, like, got stabbed in the leg at a cockfight because his animals had, like, some blade or something, attached to its limb and the dude bled out and died. [1] My mom asked me what the hell I was talking about: how was it attached? Was it a kitchen knife or a kabar? Who was this and where? I told her that I, like, didn’t give a shit about that shit.
When I tell a story, I am going to use the word “like” as many times as I please. As per the definition of the word, “of the same form, appearance, kind, character, amount, etc.” [2] Every time I use the word “like,” I am, like, not concerned with details. There’s, like, no way I know the reality of the story since I am just some white kid from the suburbs reading a small news article. All I can repeat is my experience, the sensation of what was written, what the story was like. So I, like, am more concerned with the circumstances than what actually happened. I mean, like, the dude got stabbed by a chicken. Like, seriously?
Perhaps I mock the tragedy by bastardizing the facts by not giving a shit about them, but, like, it’s the truth. I read this news story and it is just that: a story, an anecdote, a narrative with no connection to, like, the real world. Had I been there, had I seen the rooster waddle its way to the gentleman, raise its deadly appendage and slice at his right calf, I would, like, totally not use the word, “like.” Knowing the truth, I could not distance myself from it. But I didn’t, so I don’t. As a result, “like” has become the most honest word in my vocabulary because it, like, addresses the fact that I don’t know what I’m talking about. You know what I, like, mean?