0638 – Do You Like “like”?

2022.09.30 – 0638 – Do You Like “like”?

Do you like “like”?

Many people find the developing use of this word infuriating. Critics say that it makes speakers sound stupid (“It’s like, when you’re, like…”), and there’s even an app, LikeSo[1], which listens to your speech and promises it can stop you using the word.

“Like” tends not to, in comparison to “umm” and “err”, have an audible silence either side of it and it is used in many different ways, not just as a ‘filler’[2],[3]:

It is used as a verb: “I like the smell of what’s cooking”

As a preposition: “This tastes like (“as though”) it was made in a restaurant”.

As a quote: “I said, like, that’s delicious”

As a discourse marker, to start and to end conversations, or to start new topics or change topics. “What did I do last night? Like, had dinner, hung out” and the related use in the Geordie tradition of finishing sentences with a “like”: “He cooked dinner for me, like”

As an adverb to mean approximately, “It was super quick to cook, like 30 minutes”

As a noun in reference to social media “I gave it a like on Facebook”

“If you say, “He was like, seething about the pasta sauce”, you are quoting someone’s reaction, but at the same time highlighting you are approximating their response, while pausing to highlight that you are thinking meaningfully about this reaction in real time. That one word is doing all those jobs.

Sam Wolfson, The Observer, May 2022[4]

The number of ways the word is used is actually quite skilfully included in a conversation. After all, the English language is an evolving one and there’s no one ‘right way’ to use it to convey your thoughts and feelings, so the person you are talking with understands you.

[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/likeso/id1074943747

[2] In 2017, contestants on the UK dating series ‘Love Island’ used the word “like” 76 times in a five-minute conversation – that’s once every four seconds. Hear the exchange here: https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/4060212/love-island-2017-girls-say-like/

[3] Adapted from: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/may/15/why-do-people-like-say-like-so-much-in-praise-of-an-underappreciated-word

[4] In https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/may/15/why-do-people-like-say-like-so-much-in-praise-of-an-underappreciated-word

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