Although you’d find it unlikely, there are men and women on the ground fighting your good fight. 

Personally, I’ve been on a crusade to reduce the likelihood of college-educated co-workers saying “it’s like, imperative to this project, that we like…” in a meeting. We have a roster of A-List clients, the kind that give both the accounting and creative departments simultaneous boners. As you’ll likely understand, that’s a rarity in advertising. But with that territory come MBAs from ivy league colleges with the highest of expectations. Not to mention they are paying us a premium to be professional storytellers, and not grounded teenagers passing time.

Witnessing this behavior first hand, and recognizing that it could jeopardize our credibility, I took action. Like a boss, I brought up the “like” epidemic in a department-wide meeting last spring, reminding them that “we’re not Valley Girls, team.” Not a month later I called someone out; they had said “like” 56 times in a 30 minute meeting. The number of violations I observed was after noticing how much they were saying it, it could likely have been 75+. I doubt he liked being the scapegoat, but everyone is heightened to it now. As of writing this, I’d like to report that usage, both personally and office-wide, is down dramatically.

In closing, I’ll leave you with this quote from André Maurois “To reason with poorly chosen words is like using a pair of scales with inaccurate weights.”

Related posts:

1. DEAR STREET CARNAGE: THIS IS WHY I LOVE TO HATE FACEBOOK
2. DEAR STREET CARNAGE: SUBURBAN RACISTS HATE THEIR KIDS
3. DEAR STREET CARNAGE: WHY NATIVE NEW YORKERS HATE TRANSPLANTS
4. DEAR STREET CARNAGE: TRYING TO GET ADDERALL
5. DEAR STREET CARNAGE: DEAR DREW – CHOKE FUCK