{"id":16554,"date":"2018-10-24T09:00:24","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T16:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=16554"},"modified":"2018-10-29T09:31:55","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T16:31:55","slug":"open-space-to-like-or-not-to-like-the-word-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2018\/10\/24\/open-space-to-like-or-not-to-like-the-word-like\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Space<\/em>: To like or not to like the word \u201clike\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

When did we get so lazy about speaking our own language? I\u2019m guilty of it myself: the insertion of \u201clike\u201d into every sentence, for example, using it as an adjective, an adverb, a preposition. Using \u201clike\u201d can send the meaning of one very simple sentence into many different directions, and we don\u2019t ever think about it when we do it. I know, though, when I do think about it, I\u2019m slightly agog at how often it\u2019s thrown around.<\/p>\n

\u201cI woke up at, like, 7 am, and, like, brushed my teeth, and was, like, why is it, like, so, like, early?\u201d We could easily present our meaning in a much shorter sentence: \u201cWaking up at 7 am is really early!\u201d So, is it really laziness? I decided to investigate.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This story originally appeared in our October 24, 2018 issue.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I asked an expert, my linguist brother, to tell me in layman\u2019s terms why people now throw \u201clike\u201d into everything we say. He says it\u2019s what linguists call a \u201cfocus marker.\u201d It tells the listener that what comes after is the most important part of the sentence, new information that they need to pay attention to.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I also learned that if used in slightly different form, such as, \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018Say what, dude?\u2019\u201d it could mean either \u201cI said,<\/i> \u2018Say what, dude?\u201d or \u201cI thought<\/i>, \u2018Say what, dude?\u2019\u201d Apparently, our disliked \u201clike\u201d can convey a reaction without stating whether that reaction was verbal or not, something that no other quotative in English can do.<\/p>\n

After hearing that, maybe I should have a new appreciation for our beloved word, with all these unique properties. But I\u2019m still not convinced. We don\u2019t usually insert it into writing. Why? Because it would sound stupid and take away from what we wanted to say.<\/p>\n

If I took a piece of beautiful poetry and added \u2018like\u2019 into the verses, can you imagine the horror? \u201cHow do I, like, love thee? Let me, like, count the ways.\u201d Yikes. All I can do after looking at that is laugh. Not romantic at all, and it certainly doesn\u2019t get the point across in any meaningful and serious way. If a guy says to me, \u201cI, like, think I, like, love you,\u201d I can promise you that it will not affect me in the way that a simple \u201cI think I love you\u201d will. Who knows, though? Maybe that is the whole point. Maybe we are afraid of being taken too seriously, and this is an easy, if slightly subconscious, way to do it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Language is a funny thing, constantly changing (although maybe not evolving in a way that seems productive), and we are always striving to find new ways to express ourselves and to accentuate how we feel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I do know that when I sit in class and listen to someone explain how they feel about a piece of work that we are studying, and every second or third word is \u201clike,\u201d I don\u2019t take them as seriously as I would if they didn\u2019t constantly use that word. By incorporating \u201clike\u201d into all our sentences, using it to accentuate our nouns and verbs and chopping up what we\u2019re saying, someone who usually appears to be an intelligent individual is actually making the recipient search for the meaning between the \u201clikes.\u201d It causes me to think that the days of real, intelligent, and meaningful conversation may be on their way out. Or, maybe, as my linguist brother would say, language is always evolving, and it\u2019s always fun to question.<\/p>\n

But is there really meaning between the \u201clike\u201ds? Or can I just say it sounds, like, really fucking stupid? Right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When did we get so lazy about speaking our own language? I\u2019m guilty of it myself: the insertion of \u201clike\u201d into every sentence, for example, using it as an adjective, an adverb, a preposition. Using \u201clike\u201d can send the meaning of one very simple sentence into many different directions, and we don\u2019t ever think about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,221],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views","category-october-24-2018"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16555,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16554\/revisions\/16555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}