Totally, Like Whatever

Earlier this year I became familiar with Taylor Mali, a poet with a background in teaching.  Many of his poems are brilliant, and are worth checking out on YouTube.  The poem below in particular was the inspiration for my term paper in one of my classes this past semester.  I wrote on the meaning of like, and whether it's just a word stupid teenagers use, or actually has a specific grammatical function.  I won't bore you with the details, but "like" has many various and systematic uses within the English language.  During the process of writing my paper though, I really noticed how often people say "like" in conversation...and it drove me crazy.  I began to tally up the numbers of "likes" in class, which was oftentimes much more interesting than the class itself.

We can get annoyed at this phenomenon because, let's face it, an incessant use of "like" just doesn't sound good.  (Think classic sorority girl stereotype).  At the same time though, it's important to remember that language has been changing and evolving since man's first grunt.  So let's not blame the Valley Girl trend for everything here.

Back to Taylor Mali though.  He is someone that I very much look up to.  Not only is he articulate and a great speaker, his heart is in the right place.  He stopped teaching in order to take up his mission of influencing and creating 1,000 new teachers. 

Check http://www.taylormali.com/ for more details if you're interested

Totally Like Whatever - Taylor Mali