Katie Couric's Notebook: "Like"
Video: I'd like to talk about LIKE. Anyone with, like, teenage daughters hears that word a lot. There are many reasons for this. One, they use it as, like, an audible pause which gives their tongues time to catch up with their brains.
Also, they like to emulate the girls of "Laguna Beach" who pepper every sentence with "like" because either it's cool to sound under-educated or their script writers never actually studied S.A.T. words.
And delivering a phrase like "Mom, your music is, like, BAD" is easier than saying "Mom, your music has an effect on my eardrums similar to having a jack-hammer in my brain."
I have tried challenging my girls to get through one dinner table conversation without using the word "like." It was WAY too quiet.
So I am resigned to wait them out. They can use like until they're like totally over it.
And I will like that very much.
That's a page from my Notebook.