EMOTIONALLY, I was AFFECTED a lot by Rage Against the Machine, not specifically the literal INTENTION of the WORDS or what it was about, but the feel, the sound, those phrases that got me.
I'm over the word 'like' in conversation, and 'you KNOW' seems to be the placeholder of choice, but when I'm writing DIALOGUE, I tend to USE those phrases because that's how PEOPLE talk.
I don't THINK of poetry as a 'rational' activity but as an aural one. My POEMS usually begin with words or phrases which appeal more because of their sound than their MEANING, and the MOVEMENT and phrasing of a poem are very IMPORTANT to me.
A marvellous POWER of expression over language often distinguishes GENIUS; but Shakespeare in his phrases SEEMSINDEPENDENT of the bonds of language as of the bonds of metre.