Should we, like, like like?

I remember when my parents realized that the word “like” had become a verbal tic in my speech. First, they figured that humiliation could convince me to quit my budding addiction cold-turkey. “You sound like a Valley Girl!” they would say, or “Did you learn that from TV?” I knew that television could rot your brain, and Valley Girls, I had been informed, were dumb blondes who wanted to be Barbie. However, this tactic failed, so my parents mobilized for a second round of the fight. Every time I said “like,” my Dad buzzed loudly like the buzzer on “Jeopardy.” In spite of these efforts, “like” won by attrition—you can only buzz so many times.

On the TV show “Weeds,” city councilwoman, town drunkard, and anti-drug crusader Celia Hodes explains the drug trade to a class of schoolchildren. According to Hodes, illegal substances march “like penguins” out of “the ghetto” and mysteriously disseminate into upstanding communities like Agrestic, producing addiction and dependency. Though Hodes’ performance is ridiculous on many levels—her co-presenter is wearing a Sasquatch suit and her audience is inappropriately young—she grasps at the fundamental way that words and expressions, if not drugs, spread within a society.

“Like” functions within language as a narcotic—it started in a sort of linguistic “ghetto,” satisfied a popular demand, and was gradually “legalized.”

At its birth, “like” was tightly confined to the Valley Girl stereotype—distinctly feminine, ditzy, and underachieving. However, the verbal tic has enjoyed rapid upwards mobility into the lexicons of the young intelligentsia and its former detractors. What mysterious underground network is responsible for disseminating words from the linguistic “ghetto” into our Agrestic?

As with addictive substances, words and expressions adapt their social character to satisfy a demand of different groups in the population that facilitates their spread. French sociologist and anthropologist Emile Durkheim explained language as an external social phenomenon that works through human beings. When we speak, it is actually speaking through us. Language is a powerful force that acts upon us with a distinct agenda.

The war against “like”—staged at dinner tables and middle schools—failed pathetically for the same reason as Celia Hodes’ crusade in Agrestic. Its citizens, such as fellow councilman Doug Wilson, continue drug use due to a pressing external need to do so—in Wilson’s case the boredom from living in Agrestic. Without a social need, language would never become dependant on verbal narcotics. Just as a substance changes the way the body works, addictive expressions enable language to function in new ways. The demand that language is making exposes larger trends in our social system. “Like” facilitates the transformation in the way people speak that accompanies 21st century politics, economics, and culture, as language insists upon accuracy at the cost of precision.

The way the media cover politics changed dramatically over the second half of the last century. Public figures have entirely surrendered their privacy, which has forced them to be constantly on guard of what they say and do. Richard Nixon’s White House tapes from the Watergate scandal of the ’70s showed that a hidden recording device could catch them saying things that could damage a campaign or a party—for Nixon, it was the ultimate evidence that led to his downfall. Bill Clinton’s presidency suffered in the ’90s when private actions were publicized, especially once he denied them on record. In this spirit—fear of inaccuracy—Clinton famously asked for a definition of the word “is.”

In a social climate where the price of inaccuracy is political death, and where gossip blogs ridicule stars for inaccurate comments—Jessica Simpson, “Is this chicken, what I have, or is this fish? I know it’s tuna, but it says ‘Chicken of the Sea’”—language turns to “like.” If something “like”-happened, did it really happen that way? If she “like”-said something, did she literally say it in those words? By using “like,” we escape being locked into the terms of our speech.

Our social and economic dependence on technology facilitates the inward collapse of the American vocabulary—16,000 words per day—but rapidly decreasing) simply because precise words become less and less necessary. When we can see any place on Google Earth, there is less need for language that describes precise locations. When we can convey messages faster and faster through Gchat, BBM, or text messages, there is less demand for words of quality—as previous generations may define it. Words themselves become streamlined. “Chilling” represents a hundred different activities, and when we are “like-chilling” no one else can grasp precisely what we’re doing—and maybe we can’t either.

In a service economy like that of the U.S., people’s fields share more common vocabulary than they would if, for instance, each citizen were a different type of artisan. If this were the case, each person’s vocabulary would focus on precise words for the tools, processes, and products of his or her trade, making language more diverse.

The economic, social, and political influences of our time create the need for a narcotic—one with the potency to produce a “high” that frees us from inaccuracy, but also a stupor that numbs language’s precision. So we, like, found one.

Amanda Gutterman is a Columbia College first year with an intended major in anthropology or comparative literature and society. The Far-Side runs alternate Tuesdays. opinion@columbiaspectator.com