I’m listening to BBC Radio 1, where they are interviewing the 26-year-old actor and singer Dove Cameron about her globally successful hit, Boyfriend. The DJ, Melvin Odoom, asks her, “Do you think that your acting career has helped you with, kind of, like, your music career?”
“For me they’re, like, the same energy,” replies Cameron. “Which is, like, when people are, like, ‘You have to choose,’ I’m like, ‘They feel the same!’”
It’s the most predictable celebrity interview exchange ever uttered, remarkable only for one word that repeats and repeats.
<strong>‘A BIT DUMB’?</strong>
“It’s a really funny one,” says Fiona Hanlon, who has worked
Saying the word ‘like’ has long been seen as a sign of laziness and stupidity. But its use is actually richly nuanced, goes back to Shakespearean times, and is an indicator of, like, intelligence