We grow out of a lot of things. Milli Vanilli albums, radical make-up usage, and hair that changes color about every three months. But I wonder, is using the word “like” as an interjection or phrase linker something that people grow out of?

“It was, like, the most amazing thing!” or “And I was, like, no duh!”

Husband and I were at lunch today and we had the misfortune to sit next to a pair of college age girls complaining about their dorms. Jim timed one girl in particular; she used the word “like” 7 times in 22 seconds. And we’re not talking “I really like this sandwich.”

Once you hear a conversation like this, it is almost impossible to train your ear not to hear it. We laughed every time we heard two or three “likes” in a single sentence.

This is a conversational usage that afflicts females from the ages of 16-23 (this statistic is PFA by the way). You don’t hear professionals peppering their speech with “like”. So is this something that you grow out of, or is it something that you eventually train yourself not to do?

I was tempted to, as we were leaving, walk by their table and let them know that the word “like” came up about every 4 seconds in their conversation. Just FYI, ya know. But I didn’t really want to deal with the fall out that I know would be coming:

“That is so, like, rude!! Who do you think you are? Like, the language police?”