Teen slang: What's, like, so wrong with like?

[Thinking Aloud]

I view "like" in some of these contexts as an abbreviation of "something like" (or similar). While it is clearly used as a filler, I get the feeling it was originally more useful than "um", "ah", or "er", as it clarified anything said around it as not-necessarily 100% accurate.

"I was, like, 'Oh my god, that's, like, totally awesome!'," translates as, "I then said something along the lines of, 'Goodness me, I'm comparing that to something quite wonderful'." The use of 'like' allows the speaker to add additional emphasis in the retelling, without having to be accurate or truthful.

"My bad" (my hands are quivering at having had to type that) is just ... ugh ... anyway. *shudder*

Over-use of any term, of course, reduces its shock value or emphatic ability. "Totally awesome," can now just mean, "Meh, that's OK." So when something of real awe-inspiring magnitude comes along, what phrase adequately conveys the distinction between "Meh, that's OK," and something that really is atmospheric-nuclear-explosion-style awesome?

[Trolldor]

.."totally awesome" still means Mindblowing down here...

Anything that's "meh" is... well... "meh".

[rachelbean]

.."totally awesome" still means Mindblowing down here...

Anything that's "meh" is... well... "meh".

Same here... never heard someone say "totally awesome" unless they thought something was... totally awesome or I guess in some rare cases, being really sarcastic

[mistermack]

All groups have their own filler words. I can remember "like, man" was the chat in films about beatniks in the fifties.
To the hippies, everything was "far out, man", a bit of beatnik there.
Where I come from, it's still fockin this and fockin that.

My friend jim was a constant "fokker" and his girlfriend was an English teacher, but she ignored it.
But even she screamed in protest one day. Jim was getting frustrated trying to mend something, and she asked him, can you fix it Jim? And he said, without any trace of irony : "nahhh, the fockin focker's focked" .
And he really had no idea what she was complaining about!
.

[Eriku]

Teens are just lucky that like is a word that fits so neatly into all these conceptual categories about grammar. I value pauses and measured speech more... it does seem lazy to me to use "like" like that.

[hadespussercats]

.."totally awesome" still means Mindblowing down here...

Anything that's "meh" is... well... "meh".

Same here... never heard someone say "totally awesome" unless they thought something was... totally awesome or I guess in some rare cases, being really sarcastic

I'm thirding your comment. I hope thirding's a word.

[Beatsong]

I could swear I heard Maynard G. Krebs using that word at least two decades before Moon Unit was all like: "Oh my God!"

So, like, Emma Thompson is actually criticizing her parent's slang.

That's the thing that struck me. I remember "like" being a standard part of hippie slang from at least the early 70s. "It was like... far out, maaaaaaan!"

Mind you, herein surely lies the answer to the problem (if one sees it as such). Simply inform the yoof of today that they're copying their parents, and they're sure to desist immediately!

[Trolldor]

That don't work.