Linguists have yet to discover a single instance in any human language or dialect where people randomly toss a word into their conversations all the time for no reason at all, just because it feels good to say it or because everyone has mysteriously been possessed by some kind of tic. If people are using a word, it’s there for a reason, just as the ed on walked is there to mark the past and we use will in will walk to mark the future. No matter how slangy, or even profane, something sounds to us, if people are saying it all the time, it’s speech, and speech has rules.
What about "like"?
