Why Do People, Like, Say, 'like' So Much? (2022)

no clear association of conceptual with lexical. struggling to evoke mutually agreeable descriptors.

Now do 'actually'.

Why not, like, contextualize it a bit?

Note-- The political views expressed in this example are incidental and should not be construed as relevant to the, like, point at hand:

https://driftglass.blogspot.com/2025/10/pay-no-attention-to-...

//TIM MILLER (BULWARK): "Like, again it wasn't as if there weren't racist jokes in young Republican groups in 1996 or 1976. Like, there were. Obviously. Like there there's an element of this always. But, like, the culture of, like, encouraging it and and almost, like, if you don't participate that means you're the bad one. It's a sign of weakness, right? The culture of drawing people into this based on that, right? Like that they're ... like that that the thing that they're leading with on the front of the pamphlet is, like, we hate Mexicans and we're going to make nasty cruel racist jokes and, like, we y'know believe in America first and and white Christian nationalism or whatever. Like, that being the first page of the pamphlet versus you know, like, the first page of the pamphlet being free markets and free people and, like, we also have some people here that write in the letters to the editor that's... write that stuff like that's not good either, like, you know what I mean but, like, it's difference. It is a it is a huge difference."//

...

//You can tell when millennial Never Trumper's know they're dancing through a minefield of bullshit by the sudden spike in the use of the word "like".//

...

//First, Tim, have you ever asked yourself [like] why, if [like] there were was obvious racism going on in the Republican party [like] as far back as 1976 or 1996 -- if it was [like] so god damned persistent and ongoing and everyone knew it -- [like] why no one in your party was "policing" it? Who was supposed to be in charge of that? [Like] Lee Atwater? Karl Rove? Tom DeLay? [Like,] Why was no one policing senator Jesse Helms? Or senator Strom Thurmond?//