Phrases of this Generation: The Like-Legit-Like Sandwich

Before I begin, allow my to send out a disclaimer that this may sound surprisingly like a rant, which is something I promised would never appear on my blog way back. However, my friends, I think this may be funny enough to lose that negative title and instead be referred to as “a humorous discussion of a subject found annoying by the author.”

There are a few phrases that this (my) generation uses that just don’t make sense to me. Actually, they kill me a little. Or at least figuratively smash my fingers in car doors. My first example of this is The Like-Legit-Like Sandwich. If you haven’t heard of it, once I explain you’ll hear it everywhere you go from the mouths of this wicked and perverse generation.

The moment legitimately became legit the world started losing all coherence and meaning. Legitimately is a pretty word that also sounds long. People should enjoy using it…especially those who could use a few easy, long words to make them seem just above the smart/dumb line (kind of like vocabulary or evidently or obviously). But no, legitimately became legit, and soon everything was either legit or not legit (illegit?).

Definitions of this word have been whittled down to, “You know…it means, like, ‘for real.’”

Then shoot me legit.

And then something happened that changed the entire world forever. Some people with monosyllabic vocabularies who had adopted legit as the hardest word they know found out that they never have to trouble their brains anymore by asking someone, “What do you mean?” or, “Are you telling me the truth?” Instead, they could just say…brace yourselves…

“Like, legit, like…?”

Cryptic? Allow me to explain.

Let’s say I walked up to a friend and said, “Today I took a wolf up to the top of the highest hill in Minnesota and we had a picnic.” 

[Wolves actually have surprisingly balanced backs. They can carry pretty much anything up there.]

After hearing it, he would say, “Wait. Like, legit, like…?”

And I would be forced to say, “Yes. I’m telling the truth. I took a wolf up a hill and we had a picnic of berries and potato chips.” 

[Wolves only eat SunChips in the compostable bags, even though they're noisy.]

Really, it just takes all the conversational responsibility off of my friend, so all he has to do is observe my talking and do something more intelligent than squeak or grunt when he starts to get lost.

This is what the Like-Legit-Like Sandwich is really saying:

Like #1 = Are you saying

Legit = that you’re serious?

Like #2 = For example, you actually sat on top of a hill with a wolf and it didn’t eat you?

And it says this at the same time:

Like #1 = Did you know

Legit = that I have no idea

Like #2 = how to actually form a coherent sentence?

Another use for the Like-Legit-Like Sandwich is when one is trying to explain something that they don’t have the words to explain:

“The lyrics in this song are so cool. They’re like…legit, like…I really like them.”

This is merely using the word “legitimate” incorrectly. I mean, when are words not legitimate? Are there songs that are written with words like “fliminhaha” or “sklideedoo” out there? The words, I suppose, would not be legitimate in that song. But this happening is very unlikely.

[This is the most likely place to hear goofy words like this in a song. 

I dedicate this to my great friend  Billy Sveen.]

This, my friends, is The Like-Legit-Like Sandwich. You will find that the word legit is rarely found without word like nearby. May you be forever annoyed.