Like is a very talented word. It can be verb, a modifier, a placeholder, or anything else you want to fall out of your dumb head. No offense. I'm just going to ignore the proper way to say this. "I like the way this painting uses impressionist styles" will not be tolerated here. I probably heard it used like this for the first time on Saturday morning watching Saved By the Bell as a little kid. Like was usually coupled with oh my god by a teenage girl with teased-up, bleach blonde hair from "the valley" of Southern California. I only hope you read that in the valley girl accent, bobbing your head back and forth knocking each shoulder. Where's my Aquanet?

I'm not sure when it happened, but sometime in the mid-90's, it became essentially common speak for every person under the age of 30. If something isn't quite the color brown, instead of figuring out the actual color name of that shade, it's like brown. Don't want to have to ask someone's height? No problem. He's like really tall or really short.

It's almost like your brain is ready to say something profound, but the laziest part decides to take over. The part that makes The Jersey Shore cast multimillionaires and Avatar the highest grossing movie of all time. That little piece of grey matter that decides it's a good idea to eat a fried Snickers bar jumps in and brags about his intellectual superiority, "Don't worry brah, I got this." It's frightening to see how often we let this part of us man/woman the wheel.

I really do believe this was popularized because of laziness. Why go find a book in the library or a freakin' color wheel when you can just fill that space with mindlessness. But today we have this thing called the internet. Man, it sure was tough sometimes to find out about something in the pre-information age. Now we have no excuses.