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

[Shapiro, Fred]

That sounds right, I guess it was "too good to be true."  Thanks, Jon.

Fred Shapiro

________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jonathan Lighter <00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, September 6, 2025 6:29 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Antedating of Colloquial Use of "Like"

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
>
>
>
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