Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough speaking at Boston College’s commencement ceremony:

NEWTON, Mass. — Pulitzer Prize winning author David McCullough has a suggestion for what young people can do for their country. “Please, please do what you can to cure the verbal virus that seems increasingly rampant among your generation,” McCullough implored Boston College’s class of 2008 at commencement ceremonies Monday. He said he’s particularly troubled by the “relentless, wearisome use of words” such as like, awesome and actually. “Just imagine if in his inaugural address John F. Kennedy had said, ‘Ask not what your country can, you know, do for you, but what you can, like, do for your country actually,” he said.

I wonder if he’s heard Hillary Clinton speak?

For example, I cut and pasted her half of the transcript from CNN’s “Compassion Forum” into Microsoft Word and did a find and replace for “you know.” By my quick count, she said the phrase a stunning 52 times. Here’s an example of one question (emphasis mine):

CLINTON: You know, I have, ever since I’ve been a little girl, felt the presence of God in my life. And it has been a gift of grace that has, for me, been incredibly sustaining. But, really, ever since I was a child, I have felt the enveloping support and love of God and I have had the experiences on many, many occasions where I felt like the holy spirit was there with me as I made a journey.
It didn’t have to be a hard time. You know, it could be taking a walk in the woods. It could be watching a sunset.
You know, I am someone who has talked a lot about my life. You know more about my life than you know about nearly anybody else’s, about 60 books worth…
(LAUGHTER)
CLINTON: … some of which are, you know, frankly, a little bit off-base. But I don’t think that I could have made my life’s journey without being anchored in God’s grace and without having that, you know, sense of forgiveness and unconditional love. And I am not going to point to one or another matter. I mean, some of my struggles and challenges have been extremely public. And I have talked about how I have been both guided and supported through those, trying to find my own way through, because, for me, my faith has given me the confidence to make decisions that were right for me, whether anybody else agreed with me or not.
And it is just such a part of who I am and what I have lived through for so many years that trying to pull out and say, oh, I remember, I was sitting right there when I felt, you know, God’s love embrace me, would be, I think, trivializing what has been an extraordinary sense of support and possibility that I have had with me my entire life.

She does this, you know, in most of her speeches.