Ever wondered why the word 'like' punctuates our conversations so frequently? Delve into the linguistic phenomenon that has permeated modern speech, exploring its origins, implications, and the psychology behind its pervasive use.
Why do people have such a problem with “like”?
Politicians, educators, and business leaders have complained it makes speakers sound stupid
- When Michael Gove was education secretary in 2014, he used an update to the national curriculum to require students to speak in “standard English”, even in informal settings, in all British schools
- By 2019, one primary school head in Bradford banned the word because, “When children are giving you an answer and they say, ‘Is it, like, when you’re, like…’ they haven’t actually made a sentence at all.”
- Scores of recruitment specialists and public-speaking coaches have publicly bemoaned the word’s rise
Why is it so controversial?
Katherine D Kinzler, the author of How You Say It, a book about linguistic bias, argues that taking someone to task for the way they speak is one of the last societally accepted ways to exercise our prejudices
- “Like” is a good example of a word where young women are chastised for talking a certain way even though that isn’t borne out in the linguistic data.”
- In 2014, a mother wrote to the advice columnist in this magazine with a dilemma. “My adult daughter is clever, pretty and confident. However, she cannot stop saying ‘like’ about six times in every sentence,” she pleaded.
Like being used more generally as a way to break up speech
People say language is random, but it’s not
- There are patterns in language that you can’t just stick a like in anywhere
- Research suggests that the discourse particle “like” is used more by men than women
- It adds nothing to the meaning of a sentence
Speech is also a way of signalling
“It helps with what we call focus. It can be for interpersonal connection, it’s checking in that you and I are connecting. If it really were meaningless and had no purpose in a sentence, it would be much easier for us to leave it out.”
