David McCullough on the Verbal Virus

“Please, please do what you can to cure the verbal virus that seems increasingly rampant among your generation.”

- David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, imploring Boston College’s 2008 graduates to cut back on using words such as like, awesome and actually.

That’s from this week’s TIME online edition. “Actually” is actually one of my biggest pet peeves. I’ve found that in corporate settings, people often use it as a buffer: “We’re actually going to get the opportunity to go ahead and have you do [insert pointless task here].” That’s where many of these grads are headed, but still, David’s right. He’s, like, awesome.