Savannah Mul — Staff Writer
“Minds are like parachutes, that it doesn’t matter what you pack them with, so long as they open at the right time,” said Taylor Mali in his poem titled “Like Lilly Like Wilson.” Mali is a slam poet, and ever since I saw him perform this particular poem two years ago I’ve paid more attention to the overuse of the word “like.”
If instead we opened up the parachutes of our minds, like Mali wants us to, it’s quite possible we’d find other substantial words and wouldn’t fall into the clumsy speech of a like-addict. As we progress more in college, graduate and pursue interviews, the hope is to present ourselves as eloquently and educated as possible. So throwing the word “like” into your speech is, like, stupid. “I think I would be good at this job because I, like, can perform the tasks and will be, like, a dependable worker.”
For an employer to hear the above sentence might turn him or her off immediately. They’ll realize there’s a flaw in your communication skills. You don’t want to be “like a dependable worker,” you want to BE a dependable worker. This word shouldn’t even be used in the same sentence; when you hear “like” after every two or three words it’ll drive you crazy.
Like is a stumble or filler word; a word that loosely comes out of our mouths ‘til we know what we’ll say next. I pay extreme close attention whenever I hear the word “like” used when it shouldn’t be. So much that when I’m in a conversation, I can’t focus on what they’re saying, because it’s too much disrupted by the word “like.” It’s as though the person has no confidence in what they’re talking about.
This word only seems to be juicy and full of interest when you were in eighth grade and disclose to your friend of someone you desperately and at the time, truly, like. Within Mali’s poem, he writes how he can change the world “one eighth grader at a time.” Since the overuse starts here. I guess I was too busy being an eighth grader to realize my overuse of the word “like,” but I admit I’m guilty of it. The overuse of the word “like” is my biggest pet peeve, yet to this day I sometimes let it slip out of my lips without even realizing it.
In Mali’s poem he also said, “Changing your mind is one of the best ways of finding out whether or not you still have one.” Remember this. To change our minds and decide to not use the word “like” will only enhance our vocabulary. Not to mention, removing this filler word will only make our sentences more confident, declarative and we’ll be taken more seriously in the professional world. So I’m with Mail and believe we can change the world and the way we communicate clearly, “one eighth grader at a time.”
