The Painful Oversimplification of Language

I just overheard (eavesdropped on) a conversation.

Two girls, probably in their early twenties, NYU students (not the easiest school in the world to get into, I'm told) meet in a coffee shop. They haven't seen each other in a while, and so the conversation immediately leaps into the realm of "So, what have you been doing lately?"

First of all, the prevalence of the word 'like' used in my place of 'um' or in order to hold one's place when the next words aren't forthcoming is so ugly. I say this knowing I use the word myself all the time. I don't have to like it, even if I am an offender myself. My first year acting professor was a violent hater of the word 'like' and tried (mostly through acts of humiliation) to beat it out of us. It didn't really work. I've read articles recently that claim 'like' is here to stay---our language has merely adapted and evolved to the point that like exists and like isn't going anywhere. Unfortunately.

The second thing I noticed was the distressing overuse of the words 'cool' and 'sucks' (usually accompanied by 'like'). Girl number one had spent the summer in Europe visiting such places as Florence, Spain, Paris. "The people there were...I don't know. I guess they were like, cool. Yeah, I went to Florence. It was like, cool. And like, pretty."

We have a vast vocabulary available to us. The English language is veritably swimming with words. There are, in fact, a plethora of words. (I particularly like plethora.) However, instead of using these words we say Florence is cool. Venice is cool. This thing sucks. That thing is, like, I don't know. Cool. We may not have a thousand words for snow (a myth, I might add) but we do have more options than 'cool' or 'sucks.'

Use them!