'And then I was like...'
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- Опубліковано 4 лис 2024
- D'Arcy's dissertation, which helped enormously in the making of this video: web.uvic.ca/~ad...
Some other papers:
onlinelibrary....
onlinelibrary....
www.jstor.org/...
onlinelibrary....
onlinelibrary....
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This channel's Patreon: / simonroper
I see there's been a decline in viewership on your channel. I wanted to assure you how wonderful your videos remain, and how interesting they continue to be. The algorithm is hard to understand, but your passion and your knowledge are just as brilliant as they've always been. Thanks for sharing your passion with the world.
I may be wrong but Simon Roper strikes me as one of those people who would make videos even if 10 people watched them.
I think it still has some prevalence among Male speakers in the Philadelphia area, I tend to say it quite a bit (I'm 22) but I don't know if that's me or if it's actually regional like that.
Looking through Simon’s videos, it seems like less of a decline in viewership and more like a decline in consistency of viewership. It used to be that nearly every video got about 30k views and now it seems like some get 10k and others get 50k.
Dr. Roper should like, get to the point. Brevity is the soul of wit after all.
Always look on the bright side of life!
As a kid (south east, 1970s) we'd use "you know" in a very similar way with infuriating frequency. I distinctly remember when I was about 8 years of age discussing it with my neighbour (same age) and, despite being aware of our overuse of 'you know', we couldn't stop ourselves. "We keep you know saying you know, you know?"
You know, I know, you know?
As an Aussie 90s kid who's been around the LA US cultural infiltration of our Millennials (why couldn't NY have been the urban cultural export?), as well as the older GenXers who'd also say "y'know" & some upper-crust posh people who made a point of saying neither of those things - you've basically gotta just pick your poison between "like" "you know" "err" "erm" "umm" or just a painfully awkward pause while they're formulating their next sentence - or people who deliberately speak slowly so they can think of their next phrase before they've finished saying their previous- but then you don't have a space to signal that you'd like to respond or interject so it's a different kind of irritating.
It's time being spent saying nothing to signal the fact that a thread of communication is in the works either way.
That's like so gross!
My least favourite was, "you know what I mean, like...? It bugged me that it seems to be missing something from the end and yet the whole thing is completely disposable, as far as I'm concerned, you know what I mean, like..? And... people said it SO much, you know what I mean, like..? Like, in or after every single sentence... YKWIML..?
The stereotypical Canadian hockey player also does this. If you watch an average intermission interview with a hockey player they'll probably say "yano" about 20 times
...and then Simon was like, "give this video a like, like"
My guess is that "like" is being used in its traditional sense as a simile. It softens the sentence from a statement of fact to a more open opinion. Maybe people are becoming more wary of sounding direct, or they wish to seem more approachable to a contradicting reply. I guess the difference between "Man, it's a hurricane outside", and "Man, its like a hurricane outside", is that the latter involves a little wiggle room for the listener to reply back with. It's fairly subtle, but I think it is lurking there in the background.
That's absolutely why I use it (Midwestern USA dialect)
Gentlemen, it is indeed a hurricane outside.
While it’s hard to analyse one’s own speech, I think the part about trying to sound indirect and more approachable is why I use it (I’m from New England)
That’s effectively how I use it. For me it’s almost an indication of the quality of the particular thing that follows. It can be a sort of multi-level simile. It can *also* be used as a crutch word for me if I have an idea of the nature of what I want to say but need a split second to think of the proper analogy or way I wish to phrase things.
It’s almost a verbal “macro” thats usage is determined by either what comes before, what follows, or both. Like… (haha, there it is)
It’s similar to saying “this is not exactly was said or done but it gives the same tone (or close enough action) that I inferred by the subject’s action or reaction.” - so there’s an air of casual uncertainty applied to what was said
@Bob H Where does "gor" come from? "Begorrah"?
Growing up in the 90s, american teachers would also discourage the use of the word 'like' .
Yes, in the 90s my high school English teacher made sure to drill it into our heads that using like as anything other than a simile or verb was very wrong, and also that the Beatles were sending subliminal diabolical messages through their music (she was about 30 years behind the times apparently)
Growing up Canadian in the 2010s my teachers also did this
Same, 1970s and 80s, New York City.
Same in the 00s
We discouraged the use of "like" because it was interfering with students' ability to communicate and our ability to comprehend. Too often, "like" was accompanied by a mini-mimicry rather than clear articulation. Instead of saying, "He was astonished," we'd hear "He was like" [cue the bugeyes and gape-mouth]. It seems as though "like" can also be used as a linguistic shorthand for "Look at me!"
I remember a student bringing this up in class back in the seventies in California. The kids today say, "I was like, "No!" and she was like, "You're crazy." I think as a younger kid we said, "I go, "No!" and she goes, "You're crazy!"
Valley Girl speak.
I still hear a lot of people using ‘goes/go’. I’m afraid I’m at the age where such pointless insertions, as well as slang adjectives, drive me slightly mad. Then again, I have always had an aversion to such manglings and misuses. ‘Like’, particularly when it’s every third word in a sentence or (heaven help us) paragraph, can literally (literally 😉) force me to leave the room.
@@sgrannie9938 You can find old recordings from early last century, nobody talked like that. Modern UA-cam recordings give the impression of major brain damage done to the US population since the fifties and sixties.
This is my recollection, growing up in the 80s. We’re in Midwest America, and if we wanted to mock teens on the west coast specifically (Valley girls), we would replace “said” or “goes” with “like.” But to an obscene degree. Teachers and parents would correct us if we tried to use it even sparingly.
When we eventually adopted it here, we didn’t (and still don’t) use it as a constant replacement, especially if it’s a long recounting of events. We’ll disperse it with “said,” “says,” “goes,” etc to make the flow of speech sound nicer.
“I was talking to the guy, and I said, “Meet me halfway.’ And he’s like ‘No, I can’t do it for that price.’ So then I go, ‘What about $5.50?’ He’s like, ‘No, man, you gotta meet me higher.’ And I’m like, in my head, like…isn’t that what I’m doing? Anyway, so he goes, like, ‘What about $7’ And I’m thinking no way, but I tell him that’s fine if he gives me a day. But then, out of nowhere, he says ‘Eight’s lowest I can do.’ Eight? I go, ‘I can’t do eight.’ But he says that’s all he can do.”
@@sgrannie9938I hate the misuse and overuse of “like”-it makes the speaker sound like a ding-a-ling.
But the most annoying thing I’ve noticed lately is the misuse of “literally”. I was watching a YT video by a girl reacting to something which apparently flabbergasted her. She said “I’m literally speechless” as she continued on with her monologue. I’ve noticed a lot of younger people incorrectly using “literally” in this way. It’s very annoying. What will they say when something is actually literal?
My Grandmother used to tell this story from when she first emigrated from Jamaica to the United States in 1952 of a coworker saying she "felt like a hamburger." This usage was completely novel to her so she was befuddled as how someone could feel as though they are a hamburger. Even the unshortened form of "I feel like *having* a burger" was new to her. This usage of 'like' almost carries the vagueness of 'like' we have today because it is coupled to 'feel'.
My ex-wife would occasionally declare "I feel like a hamburger". I would respond with "Well, you're starting to look like one too". Did she cease 'feel[ing] like a hamburger'? Nope, but she increasingly looked like one.
Down in Somerset, in the Seventies and Eighties, reported speech was marked by "And I turnt round to 'im 'an said..." "An' 'e turnt round to me 'an said..." Somerset people spinning ourselves into the ground as we argued!
Presumably if you disagreed with the other person you'd turn widdershins?
@@notvalidcharacters Ha! No... if it was a proper dispute you had to "come up to" as in: "do you know what 'e come up to me an said?" "Then I come up to 'im and said." We had to carry step ladders around at all times.
This is definitely a thing in the way me and my friends (mid-20s, from the south coast) talk. “I’m not gonna turn around and be like, you have to leave.” “For her to turn and around and say that is ridiculous.” etc etc.
I’m from the American southwest, in a state bordering Mexico, and something I’ve noticed in the speech of my Hispanic peers is the use of the phrase “pero like”, which is an interesting use of the English word with the Spanish word “pero” meaning “but”. The other day I heard some people who looked to be in their twenties use the phrase multiple times as they were speaking with a mix of Spanish and English words, often changing languages in the same sentence. It was used before explaining one’s personal thoughts on the topic at hand. For example, after recounting (in mostly Spanish) a story about a woman who kept bothering the speaker, he finished with “Pero like, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.” And then later “Pero like, I don’t have a choice.”
In Central Mexico people use “como”,“así como”, pero… but the younger generations like me millennials and gen Z are starting to use calques similarly to the French (genre/comme/être en mode): estar así de…/ estar como/ pero….
@@danymann95 it’s all completely anecdotal, but I have heard lots of my native Spanish speaking friends say “como” exactly like an American says “like.” Almost all of them have been in contact with American culture from a really young age though and most speak English fluently, so I have been curious whether it is because of their personal experience with English or if it is common amongst all gen z/millennials. One time I was talking to a friend from Costa Rica and she used “como” the same way we would use “like” probably 4 times in just a few sentences and she was surprised that I thought it was odd. To her that was just the normal way it’s used, and I thought that was even more strange because at least us young Americans usually realize that we use “like” in an odd manner
I noticed something very similar with an Indonesian friend of mine, also fluent in English, who would often say "tapi kayak" (lit. 'but like' in Indonesian) or sometimes "but kayak" or "tapi like". Pretty interesting.
That's so cool. On twitter I've seen a lot of tagalog conversations that include some key English connecting words. It's really interesting.
As a Chicano myself, I use this phrase all the time when speaking
As much as we grumble about the young's patterns of speech, remember that the wide-reaching and wonderful family tree of Indo-European (same for all language groups) languages exist in their myriad forms because younger generations starting 'misusing' or 'mispronouncing' the words and syntax of the older generations > accents > dialects > new languages.
I was actually thinking about this recently in the case of Grimm's Law and how it took hold. I wonder if parents were scolding their teenage kids back in the Baltic Forests for pronouncing P like F. "It's Pater not Fater. Show some respect!!!" *clip round the back of the head*. Slowly but surely it took hold and helped to produce the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family.
Those old quotes of people using "like" were sooo trippy
Simon, I really enjoy your discussions of spoken language. Your videos are something of a comfort-watch for me. I love the way the mundane and familiar get combed through, and your process for identifying all the relevant phenomena. Hope you're doing well. :)
I came to say more or less the same thing! Also his voice is so nice and relaxing
I remember conversations narrated as, "And he went, 'Why?' and she went 'Because!'"
And of course I became aware during this video of you saying “sort of” and now I’d love to know how “sort of” squirrelled its way into spoken English…
So-and-so was like "blah-blah-blah" but his friend was all "yadda -yadda-yadda".
This is so fascinating and educational. Congratulations on your Ph.D. proposal, and warm wishes for happy progress.
As a millennial ‘Valley Girl’ (yes, from the San Fernando Valley in LA), that’s definitely a part of our speech! However, we also use ‘all’ in a similar way when being a bit more dramatic-for example, ‘she went there and she was all “oh my god!”’
I've heard/used it that way too here in Canada! E.g. "They were all, 'No, no, you can't do that.'" Maybe more when I was younger (also a millennial - born in '88). I don't know if I'd say it now, but I still use "like" that way in casual talk.
"Valley Girl" lingo imo is from where the usage grew...totally.
I'm now having flashbacks to (caricatured?) depictions of Valley Girls in 1980s movies and TV shows... "Like that's *_so_* Last Week. Like TOTALLY!"
Also "all like" is another variant!
Interesting. I’ve often heard and personally use “all like”, but don’t recall hearing and don’t use “all” without “like”. I grew up in the 80’s in the NW.
In the NE Scottish Doric dialect, 'like' has been used for as long as I can remember almost as a form of verbal punctuation.
Far before any infiltration of 'Americanisms', Doric speakers and younger people around them have used 'like' in various ways or even as explained above as a conversational placeholder.
I believe it to be common with Irish speakers also.
Interestingly, something I have noticed in Doric Scots is the use of like at the end of a sentence to denote a question being asked.
"Hiv yi nivver seen it, like?" (Haven't you ever seen it?)
The interesting part is that without the 'like' at the end, the question seems much more aggressive, almost a statement rather than a question.
"Hiv ye nivver seen it?" Sounds to the Doric listener more accusation, with an expectation that the speaker is casting judgment.
The simple addition of the 'like' denotes an interest for reciprocation.
I had wondered if this was a result of the mono-tonal quality of Doric, where in other dialects intonation is used to signify an asked question...
Other than that, 'like' is peppered throughout nearly every Doric sentence and has been for a very long time.
I'd bank on what is seen as an adoption of American language infiltrating British English being actually an older usage returning.
Yes! Although I grew up in Falkirk and have spent my life in east Central Scotland, not NE Scotland, I'm sure I've used 'like' in probably all the ways described in the video all my life. It's such a normal part of everyday speech hereabouts, I don't believe it started in my lifetime and I was born in 1966.
I'm a bit stunned to learn how many people dislike or disapprove of it. I never knew that till I read these comments. Certainly I was never pulled up for using it that I can remember.
So then she was all...and I was like...and then she goes...
I've always found it interesting how "to go" can fill a similar role.
"She asked if I was tired and I went 'yeah.'"
I found that that would be used for more direct quotes than impressions tho.
Or the phrase "to be there" -- I can remember roughly 50-60 years ago my peers were all like:
"...And she's *there* 'what are you doing here', and I'm *there* 'I'm 'just on my way home'".
@@notvalidcharacters Oh wow, I'm 19 and from New England and have never heard it used in that way.
I remember, in the late 70s or early 80s, my dad asked me at the dinner table how my day had gone. So I started retelling a conversation I had had with a friend, and said, “And I go... And he goes...” in place of saying “I said... He said...” He got irritated and exclaimed, “Everybody goes nowadays but nobody ever gets anywhere!”
Yeah, I've also heard that here (in Canada). And the U.K. must have it too, since Simon quoted a sentence with that expression at around 17:45.
@notvalidcharacters Where are you from? I’ve never heard such a usage before.
I've heard it used to split an infinitive: "I want to, like, improve my grades." And it's not just with " want to: "He said to, like, cheer up and, like, forget about it."
Frank and Moon Zappa were also responsible for popularizing this use of "like" in the track "Valley Girl" (1982). I was young then, but I was old enough to notice that everyone starting using it ironically, as the Zappas did, and that by the 1990s everyone was, like, saying it all the time.
I was like totally just about to say this
"Valley Girl" was the #1 song on Dr Demento's Funny Five for months. Then there were other things like a TV show in San Francisco where one guy says "totally" a lot. The rest of us were probably already saying "like" or "totally" occasionally -- I can't even remember now -- but these got us saying it more. Not as much as the people in the song, but probably more than we did before.
@@sluggo206 It was "hippie talk" until 1982. Shaggy speaks that way because he's a comic hippie character. The Zappas made usage more socially acceptable through irony, which is itself perhaps an irony.
@@mattosborne2935 I watched Scooby Doo as a child in the early 1970s but I don't remember how Shaggy talked. "Hippie talk" to me connotes 1960s words like 'groovy', not 'like' or 'for sure' or 'totally' or 'o my god'. Maybe hippies said them somewhere but not in San Jose or Seattle. I might has said 'like' or 'totally' a little bit before "Valley Girl", but the first time I heard those words en masse was with the song. We used to love the song because it was so funny, so unlike the little slang we used.
"Like" on its own as an approximation or softener, as in "He's like 5 feet tall" or "She's, like, stupid" may have been growing independently in the Pacific Northwest English around me before the song appeared -- I don't remember -- but it was the song that introduced the idea of saying ''like' all the time and all those other words. (And only the ones above have gotten into my dialect -- 'tubular' and 'groady (to the max)' never did.
@@sluggo206 People said "tubular" and "grody to the max" too, per the song, but they did not stick
You have a very pleasant sounding voice. It's quite soothing.
Simon, you are a linguist no matter what your degree is. All your videos are proof of that 😙
You are like Poetry: sometimes I don't understand you, but I LOVE listening to you 💙👑
Greetings from Argentina!
This reminds me of the way than an occasional "quoi" is thrown into French, quoi.
A great explanation that's calmed down my massive irritation with the ubiquitous 'like'. Thanks Simon. Good luck with the PhD proposal. If anyone should be doing a PhD it's you.
Congratulations and good luck on your proposal!
probably one of the best Simon Roper videos and linguistics videos in general on here. so cool!
I'm currently listening to Thomas Merton on the poetry and letters of Rainer maria Rilke and I am, like, being driven slowly but surely MAD by his use of 'see' as a discourse marker LOL!
My grandfather, born in America in 1900, with Norwegian as his mother tongue, used to end some pronouncements with "like", same as that Cumbrian example. Lots of oldtimers did. Nowadays, the replacement marker has become "and that", sometimes just contracted to "Enna". We come from the upper Mississippi Valley region, where everybody seems to be of recent Norwegian immigrant heritage.
Similar to the typical Londoner/Cockney: "innit" = "isn't it".
@@andeve3 Thanks for your perspective! Most of the people who grew up speaking Norwegian in the home (such as my dad and his folks) are now dead, but at least the accent sort of persists. Where I live, for example, we all pronounce "milk" as "melk". Other Americans poke fun at our accent, which was immortalized in exaggerated form in the movie "Fargo".
Norwegians often use "ikke sant?" (which means 'isn't that true?') at the end of sentences so maybe he swapped it for "like".
In Dutch, they sometimes do similar with "dus". Its like "so" or just a nonsense ending.
Handsome Simon.
I remember the character Maynard G. Krebs from the US sitcom Dobie Gillis, portrayed by Bob Denver. The character was a spoof of so-called “beatniks” of the 50’s (I think). Every other word was “like.”
I think the word 'affect' (as a noun) captures what you mean by the whole shape of the conversation at 16:00. If 'said' can be used to report speech, 'like' can be used to report affect, including the gist of the speech, the posture, non-verbal reactions, etc. When we say 'he was like "oh fuck"' that is really describing the affect of someone's response
@Serendipity Vibe I read in today's paper that China was becoming discompopulated as well.
I agree, but then there's the usage (more frequent ino) where it is used to indicate the person said "words to this effect", which I feel doesn't exactly fall under this?
I'm like glad you did a video on 'like'. Born in '46, raised in Kentucky, I first heard the all inclusive 'like' in the late 1960s as a marker for imprecise thinking. Not that our ideas are always precise, but 'like' for me signaled a speaker who enjoyed being stoned more often than not. My kids, born in the 80's and raised in Iowa, never use the imprecise 'like'. I'll use it occasionally to annoy, or to create doubt in the listener's mind about my past history. Like is particularly useful in a Bible study when you want to redirect conversation away from evangelical buzz words.
I've been looking forward to this ever since your offhand mention of it in one of your previous videos (might even have been the last one).
I remember hearing a quote during the 2000's that "Anyone who uses like more than 5 times in one sentence should be automatically ignored" I cant remember who said that but i buckled and chuckled at that one.
My memory is it came into British English in the 1990s, particularly ‘I was like whatever’ but my Geordie family used it at the end of sentences in the 1970s.
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley - a large suburb of Los Angeles - and our 1980's dialect, made famous in the song & movie "Valley Girl" - was pretty famous for its use of "like" in this manner. "Like, oh-my-god, he's sooooo grody (grotesque)!" I think this dialect grew out of 70's southern California surfer dialect if my memory serves at all.
Surfers and hippies, I bet. The best part is "I'm so sure!".
Hi Simon, the use of like in most or all of the ways you describe coming from the 80's was present in at least the 60's. For instance, you mention Shaggy lampooning this. Well he lampoons the usage of like in that manner in their first episode in 1969.
The first video I looked at with interviews of kids in NYC in the 1967 has evidence of it being used quite heavily. I'll link the video below. There are some examples in the first transcript of a Bob Dylan interview from 1965 that I pulled up as well. You'll see he (and various questioners) uses like in "modern" ways (but also use y'know). This was just from me going to the first sources I could think of (I just knew there'd be some good Dylan transcripts and know there are interviews w/ youths in the 60's online). I wouldn't be surprised if it came from the 50's to be honest from some or multiple of the many radical subcultures that gave us a lot of other lingo.
1967 Kids in NYC: ua-cam.com/video/dqM5NBAMhFY/v-deo.html
The first 5 examples I found in the 65 Dylan interview (there are many more):
Dylan: Uh-I don't really prefer those kinds of songs at all-"message" you mean like-
what songs with a message?
Q: Well, like "Eve of Destruction" and things like that.
Dylan: I just know in my own mind that we all have a different idea of all the words we're
using-uh-y'know so I don't really have too much-I really can't take it too
seriously because everything-like if I say the word "house"-like we're both going
to see a different house. If I just say the word-right?
Dylan: That's another reason I don't really give press interviews or anything, because
you know, I mean, even if you do something-there are a lot of people here, so they
know what's going on-but like if you just do it with one guy or two guys, they just
take it all out of context, you know, they just take it, split it up
Q: Well, isn't this partly because you are often inaudible? Like, for most of this dialogue
you have been inaudible
Dylan: You see the songs are what I do-write the songs and sing them and perform them.
That's what I do. The performing part of it could end, but like I'm going to be writing
these songs and singing them and recording them and I see no end, right now
Dylan interview transcript: dylanstubs.com/extras/1965.pdf
Dylan interview video: ua-cam.com/video/wPIS257tvoA/v-deo.html&ab_channel=RouteTV
In French, there are some expressions that are similarly recent that have similar uses.
For the quotative "like", we have "être en mode [...]", which can be translated as "be in [...] mode", where [...] is the quote. (This is not very common here in Québec, however, I think)
For some of the other uses, we might use "genre", like "Il était genre pas très content" (He was like not very happy) or "Il a mangé genre un énorme sandwich" (He ate like a huge sandwich). Similarly, one could use it in hesitating speech (But... like... = Mais... genre...). This is very common on both sides of the Atlantic.
What is interesting is that, for some of these uses, here in Québec, we may use "comme" instead, which is the normal translation for the standard use of "like" (It was shining like the sun = Ça brillait comme le soleil). To take the previous example, one might say "Il était comme pas très content". I checked with some European friends, this is not something that seems to exist on their side of the ocean. And now that I think about it, "comme" might sometimes be used like the quotative "like" as well. Some might say this is due to English influence, but people have a bad habit of attributing a lot of things to English influence when it comes to Québécois French, even when it's not justified, so I'm not sure.
We definitely use "être comme" dans ce sens-là. "Elle était comme blabla, pis j'tais comme what the fuck"
Mode is also used to some extent in English, usually by technical people who are used to discussing modes in machines or software. "He was in denial mode". "Don't disturb me, I'm in lunch mode"
@@JC-jv5xw Yes, but in French, you can put a whole sentence in there, like the quotative "like". Although I don't think it's necessarily impossible in English, it's much rarer.
15:32 it's so deeply ingrained we don't even realize we're using it
As a 28 year old in the north west, I've definitely used and heard other people use 'What were they like?' as a replacement for 'What did they say?' or I suppose more closely 'What was their reaction?'
Same here, similar age on the east coast US. Again, it's not to ask for a direct quote but when you're wondering what someone's reaction was. For example: "I told him the news." "What was he like?" "He didn't care" or "He was like 'Whatever'" or "He said he doesn't care" or maybe even a direct quote, although it's not necessary.
Yes, I have also heard “what were they like?” in contexts where someone is asking about someone’s reaction
Simon I really love your videos, you always have something interesting and thoughtful to say, the aesthetic is always On Point, and you're not 'youtubery', its so refreshing. It just feels like a conversation with a friend. The parasocial attachment is real lmao
Thank you for taking this one up! As someone who was already an avid armchair linguist in my teens when these new uses of "like" began to crop up in the NY metro area, late '70s-early '80s, I had my own firsthand observation & analysis of its evolution there & then. It seemed to very quickly take root, naturalized & invasive once introduced, as a kind of colloquial shorthand for "something like," in situations where one would rather take shelter in a paraphrase than try to accurately remember an exact quote and have to tolerate being corrected, or to avoid the time-wasting bickering about the exact wording - who cares??? - when what really matters is -the gist, the point.- "She was [saying something {understood}] like, 'You better get out right now!'" Or, "They were acting [in a way I find difficult to convey in words but something] like embarrassed." For a "long" while - as I recall it, time being certainly relative at different ages - it seemed to be a way you could speak among friends but definitely understood as lacking in the correctness a parent or teacher would expect. But this shorthand or abbreviation was so actually useful and highly effective in cutting through the unnecessary time-wasting verbiage of the adult world and moving on to the important content - that it overtook juvenile linguistics so quickly that adults had no time to become aware of it and learn to understand it as a way of speaking before it was already simply the obvious ubiquitous norm that had zipped under their radar. the last gasp of linguistic libertarianism before the legalistic and litigious '80s. my sense is that it migrated from the West Coast to the EC along with the commercial mass media apocalypse, maybe some Valley Girl and/or surf culture influence ... doesn't Shaggy strike you as a beach bum transplanted into B movies? 😄
I was having a chat with someone (far younger than me) not long ago who kept using "he was like" instead of "he said". I replied at one point with "so what was he like?", meaning (in their speak) "what did he say?". I was met with a look of total confusion.
Definitely started to infiltrate Australia during the 90s, when I was aged 15-25. I’ve always thought of it as greatly coloquial, in that ‘Valley Girl’ kind of way which seemed to be (somewhat) where it emanated. Australian culture through the latter half of the 20th century was so heavily influenced by American culture, so I find it hard to believe that’s not where this came from. It certainly wasn’t in common parlance in my final years of high school in 1990-91. Having observed the evolution of this since the 90s, I feel ‘like’ is most commonly used - by those who use it most often - just as something that’s said, out of habit, more akin to ‘ummm’ rather than as a term the user has given any thought to in terms of how / when / where / why they’re saying it, or which linguistic evolution has given a new and/or specific meaning to.
Yep, definitely around in Australia since the 90's, but doesn't seem related to anything from the US, just a coincidence. If anything the Australian usage seems to predate the US use, and that whole "valley girl" media/sitcom/reality tv saturation thing, which didn't enter the media/ internet mainstream till the 2000's.
I don't think great thought is often given to changes within language. It's just people's moment to moment reactions adding up over time.
But there are sometimes bigger reasons than most people think about hiding behind and causing those instant decisions.
for example, while we used to use "thou" for second person singular and "you" for plural or people of high social standing.
but over time people started using "you" to refer to their equals too, maybe in an effort to seem respectful, and then even to people that might be below them, perhaps for fear of being rude or simply because they felt "thou" represented an archaic and classist attitude.
Was everyone over several centuries sitting down and thinking through these ideas before saying "you"? Probably not.
but it doesn't hurt to speculate what might have influenced people's changing habits based on how it disappeared and certain writings we have from people who had the spare time to think about it.
Same thing here, people might not think about it, but there could be reasons nonetheless
The special names Matt and Mike and Andy only reflect my pure protectors aka the alphas and special names like Dunn / Dune / Dunne etc only reflect me, and all unsuitable names must be changed - the words girl and valley / valley girl and wood and spear also only reflect me, and must be edited out! Anyways, I sometimes use like - but saying it in every sentence can be irritating!
I'm of a fairly similar age to Matt and, after reading his and Mike's comments, wonder whether the context of our early exposure to the various usages colours our perception of where they originate? When reading these comments, my initial reaction to both was agreement but then I realised that I unconsciously differentiate between the use of 'like' in the more traditionally Australian colloquial language of my lifetime and its use in the context of language that strikes me as North American influenced.
Examples where 'like' is used in otherwise purely 'Australian' style speech include: Colin Carpenter (1988): "...there was this guy who's bald, right, and he'd swooped his hair, like right over the bald bit...", and Kylie Mole (1989): "...I rang up Kylie Minogue and I go to her, I go: "I really wanna go on Neighbours and like you can't have two Kylies and it would be so good if I got on 'cause Amanda would spit blood badly!"
Don’t refer to them as Matt / Mike, which are misused names! And edit out the misused names / terms land and Andy / Andi and Lin (in Colin) and purely and fairly and guy and have and ama (in Amanda) and mi (in Minogue) and Li (in Kylie) that only reflect me & my pure protectors aka the alphas! And it’s my important comments that should be read, not others’ comments!!!
Peckish, sir?
Esuriant.
Eh?
'Ee I were all 'ungry-like!
i had to write a paper on this when i was studying linguistics! its perceived overuse by some prescriptivists has always irritated me, it's just a very flexible word in that it can be used in a variety of forms as you pointed out in the video. and honestly, i feel my usage of the word has inadvertently risen since it's been pointed out to me. for example, i'm trying very hard to not use the word at all in this comment, and it's surprisingly hard for me.
It’s hard not to write it in a comment? The usage of like being discussed here, as far as I’ve seen, is mostly only spoken. I could see it possibly being used as a replacement for “said”, but certainly not as a filler word. I’m curious at what point in your comment would you have written “like”?
Hi Simon 👋 Love your videos and your channel content so much!!
3:50 'that's not the only thing he uses, by the sound of him' i peed
but seriously, great video. your channel's a real gem, i'm so happy to have found it
I found your channel through your videos about history. I am not really interested or knowledgeable enough to really justify watching your language videos, but I do and I enjoy them. This video finally made me realize that I enjoy how you dig into what people are *doing* with language, certain words, certain phrases. Plausible deniability, conveying your interpretation of someone's response etc., that seems spot on. I have worked for city government, in social work, I studied and taught a natural science. I think precise and neutral phrasing is always important in the roles I've had, to fall back on when opinions and memories differ. But in my experience, what people remember and what makes a lasting impression, are juicy comparisons, funny predictions, sarcastic evaluations. Basically the cartoon-summary of complicated conversations. The word "like" as discussed here seems to be used for that time of communication.
I hope that makes sense, I am not a native speaker of English. I'm not too clear in my own language (Dutch) sometimes, lol ;-)
Words like juicy cannot be misused by hum’ns - juicy is a food / drink related term! And, the word girl (and probably other terms as well) was misused in the video - I am the only girl / girls etc! Anyways, Dutch is great - I’ve been learning Dutch for about 2 months!
no need to excuse yourself for being interested 🌞
There’s also the usage as a suffix in gaming; “roguelike,” “doomlike,” etc. idk if it’s used like that elsewhere
Simon uploads a new video und ich so "nice, gleich anschauen"
I heard 'like' in many of the contexts you refer to at London University where I was between 1976 and 1979 where An American student (from New York, even though she was originally from Argentina) used the word exactly as it soon was to become used in the UK. It struck me as bizarre at the time but it very soon took over everyday speech!
It was part of California "Valley girl" teen speak by that time, but wasn't common away from California until later.
This guy has a pretty strong British look
Also in terms of behaviour, he looks very calm...
Having a quiet character is a blessing in My book
Simon, I love that you used the word 'clocked'. Kudos!
"It's like... you know... whatever."
You mean, "He goes she's like me and her should of went there with ur freind." I almost had a seizure writing that.
Simon was born in 1998? So he's what, 24? That amazes me not because he looks older (he doesn't really) but because he seems to carry himself with the kind of maturity you don't expect from the average 24 year old
I just turned 25 recently and he always seemed at least 3 years older than I was.
bro is glowing up I love him so much
Love only exists for me the only lovable being, and I am the only being who glows / shines etc - such terms cannot be misused by hum’ns, and must be edited out, and hum’ns don’t know what love is, so the word like should be used instead! The words key and mon and number 3 also cannot be in someone’s name or yt name! And, the word girl (misused in the video) also only reflects me!
Re op, honestly, Brits tend to look oIder (it’s just the way it is) and, having hair on face and very short hair on head also make one look even oIder - while having longer hair on head and no hair on face makes one look younger! Also, this reminds of a comment and a video where someone said that England is associated with oude people! But anyways, big terms such as amazes / amazing etc only reflect me, and cannot be misused by others!
He's an old soul
I remembered seeing a reference to "like" in this sense of the word from Gore Vidal's 1967 novel Myra Breckinridge, so it has been around since at least the mid-1960s. To me, born in California, it sounds like a usage that may have originally emerged there (see the comment about its association with Valley Girls). Here is the passage (p. 54--note this is Myra talking, a satirical character):
"he represents all that I detest in the post-Forties culture: a permissive slovenliness of mind and art. It is all like, like, like ... 'like help,' as the Californian said when he was drowning. They all use 'like' in a way that sets my teeth on edge. Not that I am strict as a grammarian. I realize that a certain looseness is necessary to create that impression of sponteneity and immediacy which is the peculiar task of post-Gutenberg prose, if there is to be such a thing. But I do object to 'like' because of its mindless vagueness. 'What time is it Rusty?' 'Like three o'clock, Miss Myra,' he said, after looking at his watch. He knew the exact time but preferred to be approximate. Well, I shall teach him how to tell time among other things."
Wonderful quote! Vidal was a very incisive wit.
It's hippie and surfer, which became valley speak.
As an American living in Panama, I find myself and other people using "como" in a similar way that I doubt the Spanish teachers would find desireable. I suspect that English is influencing this, and in my own case I know it is a crossover from my own use of "like".
In Brazil, "tipo" is used in this way. For example, "Quero comer, tipo, um hambúrguer"
Ιn French it is “genre”. Although not exactly.
I, like, watched the video and then I was like "I should probably, like, like it too" like.
Totally.
Simon Roper swearing is something new now. :)
Just for fun, I entered the word "like" into Google's Ngram and the graph shows more than 100% increase in its appearance, with the curve starting to rise from the year 1980.
But thats in written form
You make such fascinating videos
It's good to see a really intelligent UA-camr saying interesting things rather than just spouting utter nonsense like many do
Incredibly they have enormous amounts of followers and seem to make a living out of it
And when I see UA-camrs like that, I'm like "WTF"?
😉
Atomic shrimp sent me to you. I'm very grateful. Very satisfying. And helpful. Reduces annoyance, too. Big success.
I remember as a kid hearing adults say "I says..." and thinking how odd that sounded. I says and s/he says being used similarly to "I was like" and goes (I go, s/he goes).
I heard people using "...so I says" in the early 80's and those people were born around the 20's and 30's. The funny thing is when I was young my mother used to chastise me for using "he goes" and "I'm like"...and even "So I go, like..." and just using "like" excessively in general, and she took time recently to reprimand me over dinner about it again and I'm 45 now! I'm from the North Shore of greater Boston, Massachusetts. I love your videos, Simon! Thanks for all that you post.
Such a great channel. I really really appreciate the content, but especially appreciate the tone.
I am an old guy, and when I saw "like" start to be used as described, it was imitative in spirit. Leastaways that's how I took it.
Am I missing something here but isn't all language imitative?
@@ninamartin1084 What I'm getting at is along these lines. If I say, "So I said 'go clean your room!' and he was like 'you're not my real dad!'", I am probably not just quoting the other person, my intention is to imitate him. That's what I think is at the heart of "like" used in the contexts under discussion.
@@ninamartin1084 As I said in response to another comment, I think that when we say someone "said" something, or "said that" something, we can paraphrase or quote verbatim, but we would probably not imitate their gestures and tone and manner of speaking. It would be just about he words or the sense. But when we say "she was like", we can launch into a dramatic portrayal.
I was a child during the 1970s (Midwestern US, Black neighborhood). We didn't use "I was like" frequently until the early 1980s, but knew from experiences with West Coast teen relatives and friends that they did use it, and laughed about it. We used "I went ______/" or "He was all _______". Older people and younger people around me used those.
Good luck with the PHD proposal. Love your work.
Next do "right" as a discourse marker: "You go right up there, right? And then, right, you turn left, right? And then it's right in front of you, right?"
This was very interesting. A lot of us at high school in the mid eighties were using ‘like’ a lot. More so the girls I think. This was in Sheffield around 1986. We would use it before….a quote,, a thought from ourselves, a guessed thought in someone else, a feeling, even a facial expression such as a grimace. We would never use it at the end of a sentence….unless we were pulling a face.
Even now in middle age we still use it. Especially when we all get together. We all admitted to suppressing it in formal situations so I suppose it is seen as a lower form of communication in some ways. Interestingly all of our offspring use it too. So it’s still very popular. We are generation X. I’ve noticed in our area the baby boomer generation don’t use it at all.
I'm an Australian Gen Xer. For me, it's not so much that younger ppl use 'like' in a wider range of contexts; it's the frequency with which many of them use it. They say it, like, ALLLLL the time and it really, like, grinds my gears 😂
this is true with any discourse marker or crutch though. Someone who says "so" or "err" all the time is just as infuriating to listen to
@@kitchensinkmuses4947 Like so?
To my recollection, I'm almost certain it began as a Beatnik slang, if not from the contemporary American Jazz scene. Watch some clips of the character Maynard G. Krebs, from the Dobie Gillis Show of the late 1950s, early 1960s.
I am so damn old. Being born in 1982 used to make me young... time flies.
Thoroughly interesting and some nice shots of Winter Jasmin in bloom. 😄
Thanks so much for programmes. !!!! Good luck with PhD. Warren
My recollection of 90s-00s Essex speech was that "like" was used in the discourse marker context, but the reported speech was much more commonly heard using the verb "to go" e.g. 'So I go "you're a slag!" and she goes "no, you're a slag!" so I, like, slapped her'
Like a lot of things, new technology is a big driver of this. Radio, TV, the internet and social media have and have had an influence that can't be overstated.
Well this is it, you know, like, innit, eh?
Interesting the way you described even recent memory of a conversation. I live in Spain and often stop for a chat with my neighbours (all Spanish) while out with my dogs, (like you do😉) but on recalling the conversation back home find I "hear" it in English despite the whole exchange having been in Spanish.
Isn't that just because you are reproducing your memory to an English-speaking audience as I am guessing you probably have English as a previously-learnt/dominant language? If you were recalling that memory to a Spanish-speaking audience I bet you would recall it in Spanish which would make it easy to articulate in an understandable way.
I lived in Spain for 6 years and I was still in the 'translate it in my head' stage of learning Spanish - especially speaking. However, I was beginning to get good enough to know certain Spanish words that I didn't need to 'think' about them (translate them in my head). I just 'knew' them. I guess that is how fluidity and mastery of a foreign languages takes hold: you don't have to think about it....just like in your native language.
I think some young people may use “American like” in European Spanish, which is kind of odd. I think I have heard teenagers say “Y yo estaba como… qué?” Can anyone confirm?
This happens to me when remembering films or television shows I've watched in another language! When I try to remember scenes, the actors are always speaking in English in my head
@@clerigocarriedoI had a partner who used 'como' in that way, but I used to think that it might be a mannerism acquired when he lived in the UK (2008-2012). I think that something that an English speaker of Spanish might uconsciously translate as 'like' is 'en plan' (very common and very annoying as well😅).
In the US it’s generally assumed to have come from the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles during the late 70’s and early 80’s.
I think high school English teachers would get a kick out of using this video in their classes.
I love this stuff. I studied zoology but I’m a frustrated linguist who speaks a very little bit of many languages. I have read the whole of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in Middle English and have read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in Old English, Beowulf, Gawain and the Green Knight, etc. Your channel is so valuable. Keep it up Simon.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has been translated into Old English? I hadn’t heard about that. In fact, I don’t think I’ve heard of anything being translated into Old English.
@@artugertIt’s translated by Peter S. Baker … @@artugert
Congrats on the PhD proposal! I particularly liked this video because I've felt the same way as you about the word like for a while. Growing up I often heard it disparaged in the context of being the influence of TV and specifically the Californian "valley girl" accent. But I always felt that was a poor explanation and I find it quite fascinating that people were pointing this out as far back as the 80s.
I could listen to you speak all day. This was fascinating; thank you.
I'm from the US and this is thought to come from Valley Girl language of the 1980s. You likely started hearing it more because it hits every generation in their mid-teens.
I am also from the US and I make the same association, with Valley-Girl culture in California.
I believe that the underlying semantics of quotative "like" is to signal that you, the speaker, are about to launch into a dramatic performance. You are portraying, as though on the stage, the events that you want to re-create for the listener. In this vein, you have an opportunity, which I would not so much associate with use of "to say", to imitate the voice, manner, and gestures of the individual you are portraying. So the right-side argument of "to be like", in this usage, is the dramatic performance.
Mr. Roper suggested that an opportunity afforded by "was like" but not by "said" is to paraphrase instead of quoting verbatim. However, "say" provides that possibility, too; one only need append "that". "She said that she presided over the organization." is a paraphrase. The exact quote might have been, "I'm the president."
I think that using "was like" to convey only the same sense that could have been conveyed by "said" indicates a lack of sufficient courage to assert what one knows and could assert and to assert it in clear, straightforward, simple, unambiguous terms. This lack of courage corresponds to lack of self-confidence and lack of self-respect.
A related usage is "to go" for quoting (at least, it came along around the same time and apparently from the same cultural origin). We are more likely to say "the cow went ''Moo!'" than "the cow said, 'Moo!'." We don't usually attribute "saying" to non-human animals, because "saying" connotes, or denotes, symbolic communication. So, when someone says about a person, "So then I go, 'what are you doing here during school hours?', and he goes, 'I was sent here to pick up some supplies.'", we are treating human beings with disrespect by speaking of them as though they were non-human animals and as though the noises they make lack for symbolic meaning. I guess this is appropriate when referring to assertions about supposed human gender.
If you watch Scooby Doo, Shaggy often starts a sentence with 'Like'. That was late 60s onwards.
The seeds had already been sown by the '60s, at least in Northern California (SF/San Jose, i.e. what later became known as Silicon Valley). (Been there, didn't do too much of that yet myself)
There's a very similar development in German with the particle 'so'.
Ich hab ihn gefragt was er essen will, und er so, "keine Ahnung".
"I asked him what he wanted to eat, and he was like, 'dunno'."
One interesting usage I noticed that you may have mentioned is the usage of like in the context of "the ship was like to sink" in a similar way to how the word "wont" used to be used.
In Scotland oldies would use the construction " Whit like's .... "" eg a diner in a restaurant might ask " Whit like's the soup the day?" - meaning what kind of soup is on today , if it was merely listed as "soup of the day".
Now in my 7th decade as a speaker of the English language, I must admit to having inappropriately purist linguistic sensitivities. But such is age. We old-timers find it difficult to get used to new ways of behaving, thinking and of course speaking. For me personally, the use of 'like' in the way Simon describes is one of the most irksome of modern usages. . . . . but not the most irksome
Back in the early nineties when I was working as a university lecturer, I noticed that one of my students had what was to me a rather annoying habit of raising the pitch of his voice at the end of many of his sentences. For example, he might have said to me "I thought I would look it up on Google?". I add the question mark because his intonation suggested that he was asking a question, even though he was clearly making a statement.
Having noted increasing instances of similar speech behaviour from other students over the following months, it became apparent that this pseudo-question format was actually a request for confirmation or affirmation. The student in the above example wanted not only to tell me where he had looked up the issue in question, but was also checking that I was familiar with Google (a rather new source of information at that time). A nod in response from me would have assured him that I did know what Google was.
As this manner of speaking became more common over the years, it occurred to me that it had become a modern alternative to utterances such as "Know wot I mean?", "Innit?", and Tony Blair's giveaway "Y'know?". And instances of this statement format were being used not only where some part of the statement might have been unclear to the other person but also where there could be no uncertainty regarding what was being spoken about. For example, a variant of the above example might have been "I thought I would look it up in a dictionary?". And of course, there would have been no uncertainty about what a dictionary was.
It seemed also that the less confident the speaker, either in general terms or in relation to what he/she was speaking about, the more likely the use of this statement form. A statement expressed as a question, necessarily, is designed to elicit a response from the other person who is being invited to either agree or disagree. And the hoped-for affirmative response will assure the speaker that he/she is being both understood and (perhaps more importantly) being taken seriously.
To conclude, Simon's video on the use of 'like' was so informative that I would love to see a similar video from him on the use of the pseudo-question format: a phenomenon with quite different roots but used by many of the same groups of speakers as the former.
I associate `upspeak` in England with the arrival of the Australian TV programme `Neighbours` in 1985.
Funnily enough , people in the east coast of Scotland from the area around Edinburgh and Falkirk have always had the habit of a rising intonation towards the end of a sentence , even when no question is intended or implied. I can remember older people doing this in the 1970s , so its been around since at least the late 19th century, and probably for a lot longer.
I thought the same thing - that it was basically an extreme contraction if "y'know". Funny though, I swear it's become much less common in the last 5-10 years.
@@gavinparks5386 It is also used in the West Country.
@@rjmun580 High-rising-tone _is_ a well-accepted feature of pretty well most Australian English dialects, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was imported to other places via TV soaps.
Interesting thing to note, though - in contrast to what Mr. Gosling is describing in his original comment, HRT in Australian English is used to mark that the speaker has not yet finished speaking - that is, it appears on every sentence in an utterance, on the final stressed syllable of each sentence, _except_ for the last sentence in that utterance. It's a bit closer to the rising-stress that you can use on list items in this way, rather than the rising stress placed on questions - it's not prompting a response, so much as signalling that the thing that's just been said is not intended to stand on its own, and there is more to follow.
_Really_ interestingly, that follow-up doesn't even always need to be spoken _aloud_ - you can respond to someone with an 'I know', standing on its own, without HRT or with HRT; if you add HRT, it implies that there is more that you could say about the how and why and what that you know, but you're not going to, for brevity's sake. It's also, therefore, quite rude. I've seen it used this way on TV a bit for comedic effect, and in real life for substantially less comedic effect.
banger of a video. i've often wondered about this
My elderly family from Appalachia use "like" as a sentence adverb in just the same way!
As a student in the US, our teachers also tried to correct us when we used "filler" words like "like" or "um". But that was mostly in the context of public speaking, where those kinds of words make you seem much less confident and knowledgeable.
My daughter fell into that habit but I fixed it pretty quick. No way I'm gonna be ok with that nonsense.
Re your remarks around 18:30, I remember from my first encounters with this usage, living in the UK it definitely seemed to be American, and my recollection is that it usually including some miming of body language. We were all like 'what the hell?'. A great video on language evolution in action, thank you Simon very thought provoking!!
It's been great to get some perspective on these, like, moral panics. I've lived through a fair number of them now and they seem to follow the same trajectory, time and again: 1) Shock and horror; 2) feigned non-comprehension ("I can't understand a word she's saying."); 3) addition of the moral element ("Young people just can't be bothered to speak clearly."), before giving way to generalised usage, leaving only fusty English teachers to wave their walking sticks and wag their fingers at their unfortunate students who have no choice but to listen in silence. The students get the last laugh, of course, as the future undoubtedly belongs to them, like.
Brilliant videos keep up the good work Simon 👍
I liked the video, but didn't know whether to like it, like! I was like, indecisive!
When I was a pre-teen/early teen in the '60s and becoming aware of the broader culture, especially American culture via movies and TV, the use of "like" mostly seemed to be associated with what was considered beatnik culture ("like, wow!"), and in fact was an easy shorthand identifier of that sort of person. And as I recall, the droogs in the movie "A Clockwork Orange" used it as well.
Also, you use another expression in the video that I would be interested in your taking a deeper look at perhaps some time in the future, and that was your use of "kind of" at 15:58. I'm curious as to where it came form, when it might have become prevalent, and how it's evolving into "kinda" (actually "kind" with a schwa).
I used to not use "like" nearly as much as I tend to now, probably in part due to my friends using it-but I've only noticed it in my text-based conversations. It feels as if it softens a sentence for me: it lets me show either that I'm unsure of something ("Like... I guess that could be it" whereas removing the "like", despite the word "guess", still sounds more to my mind as if I'm committing to the idea); to accentuate my trailing off ("I could try that, but... like...") in a way that I guess signifies that I don't intend to finish that thought; or it sometimes adds humor, since its insertion midway through something I suppose indicates that I'm using a filler word while I try to think of a response to an absurd situation, as if my brain is sort of short circuiting from whatever it is we're discussing. So... like... I guess that's just something I picked up to fit in with them better, but I will proudly admit to that, since they're fantastic, intelligent people. I love how even little things that get on people's nerves eventually spread into common language, since it's clearly aiding someone in their communications with others, even unconsciously. I wonder what my friends would say if I asked them why they use "like" the way they do, and if I told them that I picked it up the better part of a decade ago because my brain liked how they spoke. They'd probably lovingly call me a nerd.