"Like" abuse redivivus

[Dennis Preston]

But "I want like a dictionary" does not have the grammatical shape
that would allow the interpretation "I want something like a
dictionary." Sometimes purists are just plain old pains in the ass
(or should that be pain in the asses).

dInIs


>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: "Like" abuse redivivus
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>A former colleague in the reference room, a purist and an arrant
>pain in the ass -- I admired him for it, of course -- if a student
>said "I want , like, a dictionary of literary criticism", would
>reply, "do you want a book that's like a dictionary, or do you want
>a dictionary?"
>
>For my part, at least once I was posed a question by a fashionably
>inarticulate student that contained the highest possible ratio of
>"like" to substance words.  I completely lost track of the sense of
>the question, and had to ask him to say it again, without the
>"likes".
>I too want to be a pain in the ass whenever possible, but this was a
>case of necessity.
>
>GAT
>
>George A. Thompson
>Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre",
>Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>Date: Saturday, April 12, 2008 10:34 am
>Subject: "Like" abuse redivivus
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>
>>  Actually, it's never been gone, but thirty years ago "like" abuse was
>>  a big deal among the "Death of English" crowd. Recent developments in
>>  global warming and so forth have rather shunted it from notice.
>>
>>    On campus yesterday I heard a young university woman explaining
>>  excitedly, "So, like, it was like I was like that's _impossible_!
>>  And, like, she was like 'No! It isn't!' Like, then I was like it still
>>  sounds kind of crazy like."
>>
>>    Admittedly this is not an exact transcription, but I promise you it
>>  comes very close.  She certainly used "like" more densely (no pun
>>  intended) than any other speaker I've ever heard.
>>
>>    I may have mentioned previously that the first time I became aware
>>  of "to be like," meaning "to think or say," was as late as 1984,
>>  though it has since been antedated by some few years.
>>
>>    JL
>>
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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48864 USA

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