nowadays three speech patterns of the younger generation squeak like chalk across the blackboard of adult sensibilities: the sprinkling of like throughout sentences, like, you know what I'm saying? the use of another species of like as a replacement of the verb say: "I'm like, 'Yeah, it's like totally wicked awesome.'" the replacement of say, a verb of locution, by go, a verb of locomotion: "She goes, 'Hey, that video game was totally cool.'" Professor Mark Hale, of the Harvard University department of linguistics, says of these speech markers: "This is national in scope. It is not idiosyncratic in any particular part of the country. But it is observed most often among younger people, usually younger than 25." As a trained linguist, I am fascinated by all change in language, and I don't rush to judgment. The burgeoning of like in American discourse appears to be a verbal tic in the linguistic mold of "you know." It offers the speaker's thoughts an opportunity to catch up with his or her onrushing sentences or to emphasize important points. Take the statement "I didn't do my homework because like the dog peed on my Cliff's Notes." Here like is an oral mark of crucial punctuation that indicates "important information ahead." According to Professor Hale, increasing numbers of speakers press into service go and like for say as a badge of identification that proclaims, "I am a member of a certain generation and speech community." Hmm. My professional rule of thumb is that all linguistic change is neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so. Still, the promiscuous employment of like and go stirs my concern about the state of our English language. To most of us, like is a preposition that means that something is similar to something else but is not the idea or thing itself. Thus, dusting statements with a word of approximation seems to me to encourage half thoughts. I fret that the permeating influence of like makes imprecision the norm and keeps. I kvetch that like keeps both speakers and listeners from coming to grips with the thoughts behind the words. I believe that it is not a coincidence that go and like as verbs go tongue in mouth with the burgeoning of like as a rhetorical qualifier. Whenever I hear a young person declare, "She goes, 'I'm like totally committed to women's rights,'" I want to say (not go), "Where did she go, and is she really committed? Did she really mean what she said (not went)?" "Language is the Rubicon that divides man from beast," declared the philologist Max Muller. The boundary between our species and the others on this planet that run and fly and creep and swim is the language line. To blur that line by replacing verbs of speaking with verbs of motion is to deny the very act that defines our kind. I'm like, it's totally uncool. Now try the Verbivore's Challenge. The first reader to identify each of the American authors described below will win a $25 gift certificate to Borders Books and Music. 1. Many words in our language transmogrify into other words when their first letter is beheaded—march/arch, pirate/irate, slaughter/laughter. A rare cluster of English words change from one syllable to two syllables after beheadment, so that the shorter word is double the number of syllables of the longer word. Almost every member of this species ends in the letter d—dragged/ragged, drugged/rugged, paged/aged, snake/naked, twinged/winged—but one doesn't. Identify that word. Please enter your full name Please enter your email address Is your answer all filled in? Then press the SUBMIT button below. This quickly sends your answers back to SALON. There is no need to press this button twice. The winner of the last Verbivore Challenge was Pavi Thomas, who correctly guessed the following: 1. In less than nine years, this London man of letters almost single-handedly produced the first authoritative dictionary of the English language, a feat that took academy committees in France and Italy decades to accomplish. Answer: Samuel Johnson 2. A 19-month-old girl lay dying in a London hospital. Her condition baffled the doctors until a nurse noted that the patient's symptoms were remarkably like those of an infant in one of the author's detective novels. The nurse's suggestion that the patient could have thallium poisoning was confirmed by tests. Given proper treatment, the baby recovered. Identify both the author and the novel. Answer: Agatha Christie, "Pale Horse" 3. This British humor writer and several literary friends were asked one evening what book they would prefer to have with them if stranded on a desert isle. "The complete works of Shakespeare," said one writer without hesitation. "I'd choose the Bible," asserted another. "I would choose," replied our writer, "Thomas' Guide to Practical Shipbuilding." Answer: G.K. Chesterson Language expert Richard Lederer's latest book is "Pun and Games," wordplay for kids. He comments on language for National Public Radio and other radio stations and is the Grammar Grappler for Writer's Digest. He can be reached at rlederer@tiac.net. Visit the newly-erected Verbivore web site at http://www.tiac.net/users/rlederer/index.htm