Linguistic Pet Peeves

Being a member of the generation who uses "like" to mean "said" such as, "And then I was like 'No YOU go to hell." I would like to propose a hypothisis for this shift away from said.When someone says "like" instead of "said" they wish to call attention to their emotional state. The quotation that follows is probably only an aproxomation of what was actualy "said" but in the mind of the speaker it is identical to how they were "like."So "like" can be thought to mean "and the response was given in this manner".So when I say, "And then I was like 'No YOU go to hell" I may or may not have said those actual words but hte words I did say were deliverd in that manner.I do agree that "like" is overused but I think that it is interesting that we are moving away from directly quoting ourselves and trying, instead, to convey the emotional life of past events.This message has been edited by The Dread Dormammu, 10-29-2004 07:57 PM

Often "like" is used to discribe emotional responses that were never verbalized but were still important, for example, "And I was like 'What the heck is he talking about."