[Ads-l] Antedating of Colloquial Use of "Like"

[Jonathan Lighter]

I read this as something like "something like."

"He's got like a loft" sounds to me quite different from "He's got, like, a
loft," which would clearly be a filler.

JL



On Sat, Sep 6, 2025 at 2:10 PM Shapiro, Fred <
00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> The nontraditonal colloquial use of the word "like" as a "marker,
> intensifier, or filler" is treated by the OED in its adverbial sense 6.b.
> The OED's first use of this sense is dated 1950.  Wikipedia and other
> sources record a New Yorker cartoon of 15 Sept. 1928, in which two young
> women are discussing a man's workplace: "What's he got - an awfice?" "No,
> he's got like a loft"  It appears that the cartoon was on page 33 of the
> New Yorker issue.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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