What's It, Like, Like?

Lift Your Language

In fact, it’s like this ….

There are three uses of ‘like’ I won’t be dwelling on; I’ll just mention them briefly.

• ‘To like’ (the verb). That’s straightforward, as in: I like ice cream. No problem

• ‘Like’ as a filler.  See the image above and sentences such as: He was, like, playing the music, like, all night until I was going, like, crazy. Enough said

• ‘Like’ as a noun, which it was never really meant to be – and rarely was – until Facebook came along. Even the French language now has les likes and a verb, liker (to like). 

Leaving these uses of ‘like’ to one side, there are still some problems.

‘Like’ is close to being the most overused word in the language and is often used wrongly.