like = 'It goes without saying that...not'

[Jonathan Lighter]

> This pattern has been discussed in a couple of papers.

Tsk, OED, tsk.

BTW, I associate "As if!" with the film _Clueless_ (1995) rather than with
the original Valley Girl craze of a dozen years earlier.  It came in too
late to achieve HDAS immortality.

JL

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 12:22 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: like = 'It goes without saying that...not'
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Jan 24, 2013, at 12:05 PM, Charles C Doyle wrote:
>
> > And stand-alone "as if" used to be heard commonly--as an overt negation
> or contradiction of what another speaker has just said.  Perhaps
> erroneously, I associate that interjection "As if!" with Valley-Girl talk.
> >
> > --Charlie
>
> That's what I was thinking of when I described _as if_ as "roughly
> equivalent" to _like_; in this use it's closer to (but functionally
> distinct from) retro-NOT (WOTY for 1992).  I share your association,
> although I thought it might have actually been popularized by the Buffy
> series, but Michael Adams doesn't include it in his glossary in _Slayer
> Slang_, so I guess not.
>
> LH
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of
> Laurence Horn [laurence.horn at YALE.EDU]
> > Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2013 11:58 AM
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Jan 24, 2013, at 11:39 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >
> >> OED doesn't cover this ironic sentence-header, which one now hears
> >> frequently. (I can't even guess as to when I first notice it, though
> I'll
> >> SWAG it, tentatively, to the late '70s or so.)
> >>
> >> A splendid example occurs in the current TV commercial when Progressive
> Flo
> >> magically appears on a stormy roadside to assist a hapless insuree:
> >>
> >> HE: I knew you'd come.
> >>
> >> SHE (reprovingly, with a hint of interrogation):  Like I could stay
> away?
> >>
> >> Watch it here:
> >>
> http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+progressive+flo&mid=A2E9EBE8D441C98551A3A2E9EBE8D441C98551A3&view=detail&FORM=VIRE3
> >>
> >> Thirty-seventh century researchers may have a hard time explaining such
> a
> >> construction.
> >>
> > Well, one piece of evidence at their disposal would be that they would
> have digital access to 20th and 21st century sarcastic clauses headed by
> "like" (or the roughly equivalent "as if") in which negative polarity items
> can occur, and access to the lack of sarcastic sentences in which they
> can't:
> >
> > A couple of examples from my collection, where the elimination of "like"
> makes the sentences pretty awful (although its replacement by "as if" is
> fine):
> >
> > What am I doing? Like I’m ever gonna learn to speak Mandarin.
> >            —“Parenthood”, ABC TV dramedy, 4 Oct. 2011
> >
> > I undressed in front of the lot of them, old Lear protesting from time
> to time, like anyone gave a hot bootful of piss what he had to say anymore.
> > —Christopher Moore (2009), Fool, p. 278
> >
> > This pattern has been discussed in a couple of papers.  Some minimal
> pairs:
> >
> > a.  Bill Gates received a huge tax return this year. Like he needs any
> more money!
> > b.  (So let me get this straight,) *he needs any more money.
> > (Bender & Kathol 2001)
> >
> > a.  {Like/As if} I was going to give him any money.
> > b.  #I was going to give him any money.
> > (Camp & Hawthorne 2008)
> >
> > So the idea is that these items ("ever", "any", and other negative
> polarity items) can occur in sarcastic utterances in the absence of
> negation, but only if the sarcasm is overtly flagged.
> >
> > LH
> >
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