Linguist Says You Can Use ‘Like’ More. He’s, Like, Wrong.

TNR ^ | Marc Tracy

[SeekAndFind]

If you are under the age of 45, chances are that at some point somebody over the age of 45 has condemned your alleged overuse of the word “like.” This person may or may not have said it politely. He or she may have been motivated by an altruistic desire to make you look respectable to others, a self-interested impulse to stop you from irritating them, or something in between. Either way, how we use “like” is one of the most gaping generational divides this side of those who ask, “Did you get my email?” (Of course we got your email—it’s an email, and you sent it!—we’ve just been busy.)

But a new essay by someone who is both a linguistics expert and, at least as importantly, over 45 suggests that “like” ought not to be maligned. “I had hit upon the answer to a question that had been puzzling me for years,” writes Allan Metcalf, an English professor at MacMurray College and—wait for it—executive secretary of the American Dialect Society. “Why is it that so many of us nowadays say ‘like’ (preceded by a form of ‘be’) to introduce something somebody said or thought?” (By “a form of ‘be,’” Metcalf means various conjugations of the verb “to be”: is, was, are, etcetera.)

The answer, according to linguistical science, is this:

This use of “like” allows us to introduce not just what we said or thought, but how. Instead of merely saying words, “like” with “be” allows us to enact the scene. And that, I think, is because it’s an extension of a longstanding use of “like” to indicate manner:

[dr_lew]

Whenever I hear someone say “totally awesome,” I question them. “Are you sure it’s not just partially awesome?”

Were I your interlocutor, I would find that an easy question to answer!

[Jacquerie]

Wiki Trivium to learn its value. Its absence from almost all K-12 has done immeasurable harm to our republic.

[antidisestablishment]

Whatever!

[Terry L Smith]

dear pk ....

re: “I am troubled by the phrase, “like literally” followed by something that is like literally not literal.”

I am troubled, and have been troubled, for a very long time, that the famous authors of American literature, to include Poe, Lovecraft, Stevenson, and Ellison are no longer able to be comprehended by the under-30 American citizenry, because there are no pictures, when compared to the over-priced pulp-friction of what has evolved from the days of ‘the comic book’.