Rivers Cuomo Hates My Verbal Crutch

I say "like" too much. It's my verbal crutch. But I don't just use it to fill space while I think, as many might use "um" or "uh" or even "you know". I tend to use it as a verb too, i.e. "He was like, 'are you gonna eat that' and I was like, 'Yeah'. So then he was all like weird." I'm not quite that bad and I've become terribly self conscious about it recently because the overuse of the word as an adult (which I suppose I'm on the road to becoming) makes one sound less intelligent.

So why do I do it? I can't really answer that question. As a teenager, my verbal crutch was quite common among other girls my age perhaps due to a generational trend. I did not stand out as less intelligent and maybe, at that time, my peers were too concerned with (bad) hairstyles and the coolest shoes you could possibly wear with a uniform while the adults in my life were too concerned with my grade point average and SAT scores to really bother with a silly word that had found its way into my vocabulary. They probably thought I'd grow out of it. Maybe I even thought that.

To be honest, most of us did. Unfortunately, I was not part of that group. My vocabulary expanded but the new words emerged in my writing rather than in my speech. And, granted, I am pretty quiet but when I do get excited and tell a story, a mental tally of the word runs in my head. But I can't stop it. It's like a geyser. I want to stuff cork in my mouth.

Alas, a cork will not solve the problem. Eventually, I'll have to say something again for some reason (to the dismay of some).

Someone once told me that if you say a phrase three times, it becomes part of your regular vocabulary (the fact that I can't remember who told me this may be a sign that this is not true). However, how does one remove a phrase from their regular vocabulary. Especially a phrase that has become such a vital part of their vocabulary.

I might try replacing it with another word. But the only word that I can come up with that can be used as multiple parts of speech, as a verb, adjective, noun, and that I also say quite a bit is very inappropriate and probably not the best replacement in most cases.

So it seems I'm cursed to this verbal crutch for the rest of time. And those who love me will only have to accept it. There. I said it.