I need like help like listening to like conversations.

February 25, 2010 2:03 PM

When did the excessive use of "like" become a part of the American lexicon?

I have a hard time listening to people who use like excessively in conversations. I think knowing more about the phenomon will help.

Is the excessive use of like limited to just American english?

Any links to further reading on this subject?

posted by woodjockey to Writing & Language (19 answers total)

It's quintessentially part of the "Valley Girl" persona. The "Valley Girl" is an early-80's California phenomenon. Whether it can be traced back further than that I, like, totally don't know, ya know?
posted by GuyZero at 2:06 PM on February 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

Some form of verbal pause has always existed (ayuh), but I think it's attributable to Valspeak.
posted by mattbucher at 2:07 PM on February 25, 2010

Response by poster: It seems I need to like spell check more than I do.
posted by woodjockey at 2:08 PM on February 25, 2010

That is like soooo last month.
posted by chrisamiller at 2:18 PM on February 25, 2010

I'd say it's a fair bit older than the 80s. Just off the top of my head, Oddball uses it a fair bit in Kelly's Heroes (1970).
posted by pompomtom at 2:20 PM on February 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

Maynard G. Krebs used "like" a lot in "Dobie Gillis" which means it was probably a common enough term way back in the late 50s/60s. I doubt the "Beatniks" were responsible for originating the term though.
posted by wherever, whatever at 2:21 PM on February 25, 2010

I can't place which, but one of the Hanna Barbera cartoon characters voiced by great Daws Butler used "like" in the same way as the Beatniks did.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 2:43 PM on February 25, 2010

Response by poster: Great link chrisamiller. What words did you use to find that? My searches turned up a whole lot of nothing.
posted by woodjockey at 2:54 PM on February 25, 2010

I think it all become popularized by the movie "Valley Girl" from the 1980's.
posted by reenum at 3:00 PM on February 25, 2010

Wow, I remember an episode of "My Three Sons" (60s?) where the crotchety uncle makes fun of some "hippies" at a party by copying their use of "like"...
posted by largecorp at 3:12 PM on February 25, 2010

However, non-traditional usage of the word has been around at least since the 1950s, introduced through beat and jazz culture. The beatnik character Maynard G. Krebs (Bob Denver) in the popular Dobie Gillis TV series of 1959-1963 brought the expression to prominence. The word finds similar use in Scooby Doo (which originated in 1969) : Shaggy: "Like, let's get out of here here, Scoob!" It is also used in the 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange by the narrator as part of his teenage slang. "I, like, didn't say anything."

I wish it would die.
posted by applemeat at 3:38 PM on February 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

What words did you use to find that?

Something along the lines of "like language origin valley girl"
posted by chrisamiller at 4:05 PM on February 25, 2010

Though I recognize its roots are older, it really mushroomed in 1982 with the widespread national popularity of the song "Valley Girl" and other associated pop culture stuff that picked up on the treand. (I remember, it changed the way I speak forever). This recent thread on the blue compiles a lot of personal experiences and some further links and studies.
posted by Miko at 4:17 PM on February 25, 2010

The next time you reflect upon how annoying it is, just remember that it's actually an amazingly versatile word. I wrote a portion of my thesis on the word, and referenced a great article (that I'll try to dig up now and link to) that provided examples of all the different uses the word now has as well as estimates for when those uses began.
posted by ORthey at 4:54 PM on February 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

I was in high school through the 70's and our teachers nagged us constantly about its use then. It was by no means new then.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 5:22 PM on February 25, 2010

Yep, it's a filler word and most (if not all) languages have them.
posted by pintapicasso at 5:36 PM on February 25, 2010

for me it was Fast Times at Ridgemont High that made it horribly popular, but that was to a very specific age group
posted by Redhush at 6:11 PM on February 25, 2010

Yep, it's a filler word and most (if not all) languages have them.

It's not only a filler word, it is also an adverb and a quotative.
posted by oneirodynia at 7:24 PM on February 25, 2010

Google Scholar lists approximately 166,000 articles about the word 'like' as a discourse marker. I can't even begin to form a consensus about the plethora of OED entries for 'like'...there's just too many. Additionally, Jean Fox Tree has contributed quite a bit of research to the field on the subject of 'like'. All very good and reputable stuff (and fun! if you're into that sort of thing). If you have university access, you can probably download many of her excellent articles on the topic.

You'd be absolutely floored if you realized how often all sorts of people use 'like', all the time and in a variety of contexts. There's a very negative and marked social stereotype about its use; confirmation bias takes care of the rest.
posted by iamkimiam at 9:08 PM on February 25, 2010 [1 favorite]