Author George Saunders defends like. ‘There’s an Orwell essay that I love, called “Politics

and the English Language,” in which he says that

language is inherently political. So something like

“like” is a sort of indicator of a larger societal

dysfunction. What “like” does is allow you to join

two thoughts that are grammatically distinct but

associatively linked, without having to go to great

lengths to make the connection. It’s kind of an

impressionistic device. You can say, “The truck was

going so fast, like, I just went, like: Slow down,

jerk?” I’m sure we stumbled across that sort of

device because we needed it. It’s meaningful.’ [Atlantic]