Why do young Americans always say 'like'?

Question

I have recently moved to, like, Boston. I've stopped at, like, y'know, a few other cities along the way and am completely at a loss to explain why when referring to someone elses conversation the word 'like' is always used by the youth of today. e.g. "We went to town, and he was like, 'What is the time?' and I was like 'I don't know' and he was like..." etc.

This also seems to have escaped from describing conversations into like, normal speech as well. Where did this phenomenon come from? It does not even make sense!

Thoughts?

Answer 1

to be honest with you i use the word "like" a lot when i speak and I can hear myself but I actually think that it is used just the way the word "uh " is used it gives plp time to think what they are trying to say

Answer 2

I, like, hate it and think that it's, like, just a product of our culture making some word, like, popular. Like, I wish people could just say what they mean to say and like, stop saying like, because, like, people don't sort of, like, do something, they do it. They don't sort of say somehting, they say it or they don't. They don't "like, said" anything.

Answer 3

Like it's totally like a blond California girl sort of thing. I like to like make fun of people who always like say "like" like a bunch of times in like every sentence that they like ever say. And oh my gosh, you like totally seem to like enjoy doing that too. We should like go to some like Californian beach together so that like we can like make fun of people who speak this way for like a while. But, like on the other hand, we would like probably have to like totally like kill ourselves just to like get rid of all of the ditsy blond colloquialisms that like will have like made their way into like our heads.