While "like" in place of action and to be verbs has been around since beatnik days, it seems lately to have gotten out of control. It makes its users seem illiterate to me even when the rest of their language is exemplary. Why did such an awkward construction catch on? Users seem also to begin sentences with "So," and they aren't Japanese expressing agreement.

Geoff the Grammar Prig

I don't use "like" in that way much, but I've noticed I do start plenty of sentences with "So..." I hadn't even realized it until I asked the question here once. I am trying to limit it because I don't like it when others do.

Your link, goofy, does nothing to remove me from those of the "knee-jerk antipathy" faction. To me it doesn't work as a simile shortcut.

Geoff the grammar prig

It's also a matter of how often it is said. If every other word is "like," which is what I've seen. I'd not like any word, or sentence construction, where it was used in every other sentence.