When, why, how did the word “like” become inserted so frequently into the spoken English language?

Question

When, why, how did the word “like” become inserted so frequently into the spoken English language?

In: Other

Answer 1

It must already have been common in California in the 1960s, because Gore Vidal’s novel *Myra Breckinridge* (1968) has a joke about the drowning Californian who shouted “like, help!”