Like...Illustrative Examples
“Like” has gotten a bad rap.
Whether it was because of its excessive use from bubble-gum smacking, eye-rolling teens from SoCal in the 80’s, or its appearance as a recurring filler word between sentences, “like” has become a pariah of the English language.
But don’t be too quick to entirely discard it from your vocabulary. “Like” or its close cousin “such as,” is often the gateway to engaging and persuasive content.
Imagine that a speaker says,
“There are going to be a lot of amazing activities at the conference.”
After hearing that line, do you have any idea what activities you will encounter if you attend? Can you envision the look and feel of the place? Are you excited to go?
Most likely, your answer is “no,” and that’s because the speaker simply made an abstract statement—there’s nothing to visualize, nothing to judge, and nothing to stick in your memory. Instead, you were simply left to trust that the activities would be “amazing,” whatever that means.
That’s the problem with abstract statements—they don’t include anything tangible or relatable. They're hollow statements that don’t resonate. And that’s where the “like” comes in...
Consider this alternative,
“There are going to be a lot of amazing activities at the conference, like a mini-hackathon, a Lego design-and-build contest, and even a private Justin Bieber concert.”
Even if the Beebs isn’t your jam, the addition of “like” and its train of examples gives you a clear picture of the conference’s activities. All ambiguity has disappeared, and it all started with “like.”
So, the next time you catch yourself saying something akin to,
“Data from Q4 proves we’re on track,”
“Participants in our initiative will see a wide range of benefits,”
“Adopting Lean as a philosophy will fundamentally change how we build our products,”
or a host of other, equally intangible sentences, consider adding a “like” followed by a few illustrative examples.
All that said, don't go overboard. If you're using "like" as a filler word, you’ll get the same 59% favorability rating as the 1980’s movie Valley Girl...and you will deserve it.