These Kids Nowadays . . .

Having forgotten my i-Pod, I had to listen to two very young women sitting behind me on the subway last night. They were both in their early twenties I'd say. What really amazed me was how often they used the word 'like'.
"He was, like, wearing this, like, black hat and looked, like, right at me. . . "

It was utterly amazing. I know that it's a popular word with kids these days and I tried to keep that in mind while listening to them. I really did. I'm even aware that the American Heritage Dictionary now lists 'like' as a pausitive article which, frankly, I find horrifying. But these gals really amazed me with the frequency of its use. As I left the subway and walked home, I really thought about how fun it would be to change careers, become a public school English teach, and lower the grades of any kid who used 'like' as a pausitive article more than once a day. God! That would be fun.

Listening to these young women, I realized that the frequency in which this word is used in increasing with no end sight. My fear is that these kids will cause the English language to evolve to one that contains only inflections of the word, 'like'. It'll go something like this:

Girl: "Like, like-like-like, like, like, like; LIKE, like-like, like - - like!
Guy: "LIKE! Like-like-like, like, like, like? . . . like?
Girl: "Eeeeww! Like!
Guy: sigh . . . like . . .