Stuff You Should Know - Like, here's the episode on "like"

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

Like is a very divisive word. Purists think it's like, a filler word born in the 80s that's like, destroying the English language. Turns out none of these are like, true. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the best shows of the year, according to Apple, Amazon and Time, is back for another round. We had a big bearer of a man who was called Mal Evans, who was our roadie, and uh, he was coming back on the plane and he said, will you pass the salt and pepper? And I miss herding. I said, what? Sgt Pepper. Listen to season two of McCartney, A Life in Lyrics on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Jenna Ashquitz. And Kevin McKayle.

Hosts of And That's What You Really Miss Podcast. We're reliving the magic of McKinley High by watching all six seasons of Glee. We have exclusive interviews with some of your favorite Glee cast members like Chris Colfer, Amber Riley, Darren Criss, Heather Morris, Alex Newell, and so many more. Meet us in the choir room while we reveal our greatest memories and untold stories. Listen to and that's what you really miss podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too.

And this is Stuff You Should Know, another linguistic, fantastic, gigantic edition. Device of? I guess. Really though, I mean, if you're standing up against the use or overuse of the word like, just take your head out of the hole and look around and see other things that are really worth your time

and effort and attention and energy. Yeah. We've gotten the random email here and there, and like you said, we're talking about the word like, not as in like you said, although we're going to cover all the supposedly proper uses. Yeah, also, we're going to accidentally use like or unconsciously use it, and this is going to be a really confusing episode. Yeah, because it's how people talk for the most part and it's not just young girls as we'll see. That's sort of a sexist thing to think and a misnomer. We all do it generally unless you are one

of those people who thinks that it debases the human language and speech and you have taken a real stand against it. You know, Godspeed, if that's the hill you wanna die on, but like it ain't mine. No, some people get so into it, they throw cow's blood on people on the street when they use the word like. So Chuck, let's talk about the word like itself. Okay. Cause there is like plenty of, oh my God, I just did it.

There is plenty of good usage or accepted usage of it. That's not controversial at all, which makes sense because it's been with us for a really long time. Apparently like goes all the way back to old English. That's some old English, right? Eight ball, 800. There's a word called geliched. And I looked it up, it is liched,

even though you'd think it was liched, L-I-T-C-H. That's how it's pronounced. But it's spelled G-E-L-I-C, gelich. And basically, yeah. And basically it meant with the body. Lich meant body, really it meant corpse. So that was the literal meaning of gelich. Gelich.

So practically speaking, gelich meant with the body of and then eventually kind of similar to, and then over time time because language changes. Thank goodness we don't speak old English anymore. Gel-Iced, that's even hard to say on its own, that was shortened to just LIC, which I guess would just be Lich. And by then it had lost the connection to corpse and body and became the root of the word like as in similar to.

Yeah. Isn't that fascinating? It originally meant corpse and it meant related to the corpse, then it meant to with the body of or similar to and then just similar. Boom, bam, bam. I love it. And for a long, long time it was used in Old English like as a suffix. And then that carried over like, F-O-L-C-L-I-C would have been, I guess, folk-liced. Sounds German, like folk-like, in other words, folksy. But then, you know, Americans started using it like, you know, Josh looks angry-like, or that person is saint-like. And sometimes we still use it like, you know, Josh looks angry like, or that person is saint-like.

And sometimes we still use it like that, but in general, we came up with L-Y to stick on the end of a word, to make it an adverb. And so we got words like slowly and saintly, instead of saint-like and slow-like. Yeah, so Lee, L-Y seems to have evolved into an abbreviation for like. It still means the same thing. We just say it differently. It's abbreviated. The verb to

like means like to be pleasing or sufficient, right? Sure. Originally, it operated in reverse. Dave helped us with this, by the way. Great job, Dave. But if you liked something, it wasn't expressed as you like it. It was that the thing you like likes you. There's an example from the two gentlemen of Verona, Shakespeare play, where one character says to another, the music likes you not, which means you don't like the music. And then eventually everybody was like,

we sound insane talking like this and made it the way that it should be, which is how we say it today, which would just be you don't like the music. Yeah. There was other weird usages back then that have all since sort of gone away. Things earlier, I guess, up through the 17th century,

you could say Lker or lycus. I know. Light could use almost or nearly as in, like that play was so boring, I liked to fell asleep, like I almost fell asleep. I like that. Yeah, that's a good one. And then I believe in about the mid 19th century,

which was a pretty late on the scene usage was feel like, like I feel like going bowling as in I'm in the mood to go bowling. I should have said that likes me. Right. The bowling likes you. Yeah. So, since this has been around, what just for probably close to a thousand years, maybe more. Old English is around for a while.

Like has evolved, but as far as words go, it's really, really evolved, and it's still evolving before our very eyes. But over the years, in modern English, some widely accepted, grammatically correct uses of like have come about. Only five. Don't even try to go beyond that. Yeah, they're supposedly only five as a verb, obviously, meaning to enjoy. I don't think we have to explain that. As a noun, like here is a list of my likes.

Right? Yeah, okay. My turn. Similar to, which is kind of like of the body, the original version of like. That's a preposition. So like you smell like a wet dog. Or here's an example in here.

That looks like your spatula. What situation would that arise in? A chef cooking competition. I guess so. Where it was stolen by the evil chef and the friend. Yeah, yeah, that looks like your spatula, Josh. Like the wingman friend chef is like, that looks like your spatula.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, we figured it out. I feel better now. We figured it out. What else? Conjunction replacing as, you know, like my dad always said, don't bother me for advice. Oh, sorry, I was getting personal. Like Josh always said, never trust family. Exactly. The famous quote. Okay, so those are those are the ones. oh, there's one more as a suffix. Like, remember we said saintly or something like that.

Like still hangs around in some cases, like you wouldn't say that, that guy's innocent approach to nature is very childly. It's childlike. Yeah. Yeah. But isn't that interesting that I mean the exact same thing, but you could use one for in one instance, but not in another. They're not just interchangeable.

I love that. Yeah, and childlike is not childish, two different things, they're two. Exactly, but there's no such thing as childly, I think is my larger point. That's pretty much the point of the entire podcast, really. Yeah, and my point is childlike is wonderful and childish is awful. True that.

We should do one on ish. That's a good one. I looked it up. I wondered if that came from lich or lich and it doesn't. It's an even older word, I think, that means from the country of or the origin of. So you would be George-ish. Yeah. And now people, even my own daughter the other day asked her something and she went, ish. Yeah. I'd be worth one for sure.

Down the road. Maybe a shorty. Okay. Shortish. A short like episode. Should be a shortly episode. Should we take a breakly? Uh, surely. Okay. Let's do that now. Very interesting.

One of the best shows of the year, according to Apple, Amazon and Time, is back for another round. We have more insightful conversations between myself, Paul Muldoon and Paul McCartney about his life and career. We had a big bear of a man who was called Mal Evans, who was our buddy, and he was coming back on the plane and he said, will you pass the salt and pepper? And I miss her then. I said, what? So I drew that one. This season we're diving deep into some of McCartney's most beloved songs. Yesterday, Band on the Run, Hey Jude.

And McCartney's favorite song in his entire catalogue, here, there, and everywhere. Listen to season two of McCartney, A Life in Lyrics, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everyone in our country has a voice. It's something that says not just where you come from, but who you are.

Welcome to NPR's Black Stories, Black Truths, a collection of podcasts and a celebration of the hosts in journalism who've always spoken truth to power. Our voices are as varied, nuanced, and dynamic as the Black Experience, and stories should never be about us without us. Find NPR Black Stories Black Truths on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

What's up everybody? I'm Duane Wade and I've been blessed to have so many titles so far in my life. But now I'm adding podcast hosts with my new podcast called The Why with Duane Wade. How did you feel about me in 2006? Well, there wasn't a lot of love there, I'd say. So there was definitely, yeah, there was definitely some cold times. As I step into a new phase of my life after basketball, I find myself with new inspirations,

new motivations, and new wise. On this show, I will have intimate conversations with some of the biggest names in sports, in music, entertainment, in fashion. And we will discuss the wise in their lives. Everybody welcome Rick Ross to the podcast. My God. My brother, Mello Lindsey Bond, Paul Gasol, Mellow, Lindsey Von. Palga Saul, Pat Riley. Dirk Kassler.

Welcome. Listen to the why with Dwayne Wade on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or whatever you can get your podcasts. I just got to say this is getting pretty fun. You knew it was gonna be. Yeah. Right? I didn't know. Sure.

I figured we'd be slinging the slang. And that's where we come to now, actually. Good setup, me. The slang of like is where people, some people tend to get upset. It's interesting, Dave here says most people believe that any use of like outside those acceptable ways is meaningless. I would say some people, I don't think most people believe that at all. Right. I thought that was an odd word to use too. Yeah. Come on Dave.

I can't tell you the last time I ran into anybody who really had an issue with it. We haven't gotten an email on it for a while, but every once in a while, someone would write in and you could tell her just like bleeding from their eyeballs. Like they are, they hate us so much because we use the word like. With their ears.

Yeah. And it's just like, I can't do anything for you, man. I'm not gonna stop talking the way I talk for you. Yeah, sorry. This is the way it is. Nothing personally. Yeah, of course. The slang that we're talking about though,

that people have a problem with, and these people are generally like, you know, it's filler, it's not even a word. It's basically your um or your uh, you're abusing it, you're overusing it. And some people even go so far as to say, like I mentioned earlier, like you're, you're destroying the English language.

Okay. So those people just, I guess, buckle up because this is the part we're going into now because it turns out if you, um, if you hang out with the hip linguists, they will tell you, man, like, like, really performs a lot of, like, really important functions. Yeah. That's exactly what they would say to you. PhDs. Exactly. Exactly.

So Dave wrote up a little script. Do you want to play guy number one or guy number two? I would like to be guy two. Okay. You know what's funny is this sounds like a conversation we would have. It totally does. Backstage. At the mall. Yeah. All right. Here we go. Guy number one. That's me.

Okay. Hey Josh, have you like seen what they're charging for the new Jordans? I know they're like a million dollars. Like who can afford this stuff? I think they're like 250 at Foot Locker, which is still crazy. Like I get that they're cool and everything, but if I paid $250 for shoes, Yumi would be like, we're getting a divorce. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr everyone. I wonder where our TV show got canceled.

They all have a use. They all have a function, and those functions even have names. Yeah, it's true. And it's not like they made up these names for like. They said these terms, these different kinds of grammatical usage that make up a lot of slang, especially in American spoken English. That's very important. We're, especially in American, spoken English. That's very important. We're talking almost exclusively here about spoken English.

That like fills some of those already established compartments. All right, so what's first? The first is the way that I think most people who like derived like, what they focus on the most, which is called a quotative, technically a quotative complementizer, which basically what you're saying that, it sets up an impression, a paraphrase of what another person had said, would said, might say.

Like when I said, you me would be say, like when I said, Yumi would be like, we're getting a divorce. I'm not expecting you to believe in that conversation that Yumi told me that she's going to divorce me if I spend $250 on some Air Jordans. But you know that the sentiment is generally true, maybe if a little exaggerated. So what that like is doing right there

is signaling to you in conversation, hey, take what I'm saying with the grain of salt here, I'm fudging a little bit, but I'm still just trying to get a general point across. Yeah, and also a day points out, it can also be used to set up like a mimic or like an impression of the speaker. be used to set up like a mimic or a, like an impression of the speaker. You didn't do it there because you're respectful of you me.

But another gentleman might say, you know, my wife would be like, we're getting a divorce. Or something like that. It is used a lot of times to set up, or like, you know, let's say it was Sammy Davis Jr. Okay, let's hear it. Sammy would be like, hey, I'm gonna file tomorrow for divorce.

That was lovely. That was love-like. So the next thing we can talk about is the approximate adverb usage in this scene. That is when it's used, and this is very, very common. This is when it's used to mean, you know, around pretty much more or less, just about. Like when I said, I think they're like $250 at Foot Locker.

That means, you know, there were two or 300 people there, but there were like two or 300 people there. The bill was like 70 bucks or something. That means you're rounding up or you're approximating something. Yeah, and again, in this sense too, like signals to the listener, like, hey, don't fully take what I'm saying as fact.

I'm not trying to be 100% accurate here. I'm trying to get a general idea across that this is really expensive. I saw a paper in the journal, Autism and Developmental Language Impairments by Jones, Zane and Grossman, 2022, Red Hot still off the presses. And they use this example of somebody saying,

I have like a hundred pair of shoes, right? You could have 40 pairs of shoes. And because you use the word like, that still gets the point across, and you're speaking, you're communicating in like a still, essentially an accurate way. What you're saying is I have a lot of shoes. Now it's actually 60 less than the number

I just threw up, but it doesn't matter because 40 is still a pretty big number. Right. What a like is doing here is standing in for approximately. 60 less than the number I just threw up, but it doesn't matter, because 40 is still a pretty big number. Right. What a like is doing here is standing in for approximately. And in this case, approximately wouldn't work. Because if you said, I have approximately 100 shoes and you actually have 40,

that number is so way off that you're essentially either lying or totally incorrect. Like, scuttles all that and says, hey, just go with me here a little bit. I'm just saying I have a bunch of shoes. Yeah, it really covers your bases. That's a legitimate function of conversation. No, absolutely.

I do wanna poke Dave here just once because one example he used was the movie starts at like two or three. Like, well, that's the case, Dave. That's kind of important. You should be pretty specific. Dave's always late. He use was the movie starts at like two or three like well, that's a case You should be pretty specific All right, what's next we have the discourse marker, right? Yeah, this is pretty important too, right? So this is Probably something that you didn't know that it was called this, but we all use discourse markers all the time

He found another linguist named Anne Kersan who has this analogy where It's like trafficked discourse markers like a traffic signal or road sign that help you navigate spoken English And like is very versatile in this function because it can mean a bunch of different things as a discourse marker, the first of which, like you said, it could be exaggeration. And in this case of our scene, I know these Jordans are like a million dollars. It's obviously not a million dollars, but it sets it up as I'm clearly exaggerating.

Yeah, it's similar to the pair of shoes thing too, where if I said, I know there are a million dollars, but it sets it up as I'm clearly exaggerating. Yeah, it's similar to the pair of shoes thing too, where if I said, I know they're a million dollars, you'd be like, no, they're not. That's a little high. I am from Russia. Right. In Mother Russia, Air Jordan's by you. In Russia, music likes you not.

It can be used as a discourse marker for emphasis in our scene. Have you seen what they're charging for these new Air Jordans? So like just sort of emphasizes scene and it just sort of pumps up that like, hey, it's something outrageous is about to come your way. Yeah, another one is like, let me elaborate. So when I think I said like, who can afford this stuff? I'm actually elaborating on a previous sentence about how expensive they are.

So they're really expensive. Let me elaborate. Who out there could afford this stuff? That's how expensive they are. Just adding like right there cuts down on all that extra fat. Trims it like a packer in 1906 in Chicago. Yeah, and you know, there are probably people out there that are saying, well, you could drop the word like in a lot of these instances, maybe not the million dollars one and stuff like that, but you could say in that sentence, who can afford this stuff?

And I get that, but that doesn't mean that putting like in is bad necessarily. Right, and who wants to sound like Larry David all the time? Right. Nobody. Larry David. Yeah, I guess. What else, what's surprise?

It's funny. It gets across surprise, but you have to use it in a really unsurprised tone to for it to be effective. So, for example, if somebody you would not expect showed up at a party, and you went, she's here, you can kind of get that across. Like, I'm really surprised that she's here. I'm maybe a little chilled that she's here. She should not be here, that kind of thing. But if you say she's like here, that really gets it across.

Gets it across a little better. And but you have to, you can't be like, she's like here. That doesn't work. You have to tone it down and do the opposite and it's then it conveys surprise It's fascinating. It's amazing that that this is how we talk and nobody's writing this stuff down The linguists are writing this stuff down from studying what people are doing in real time in conversation This is not part of like the modern language associations like handbook. Yeah modern language associations like Handbook. Yeah.

For sure. The last one we're gonna talk about is as a discourse particle and this is the one, this is the real bad guy as far as like Hater's Go. Don't you think? Probably yeah. I think this is the one that people will say is clearly just inserted in there as filler.

It is the one that is infecting our language is this discourse particle use. And that is, I believe the woman who wrote the book, Alexandra Darcy, she's a linguist, said, I believe a PhD, I'm not mistaken, said that using it as a discourse particle doesn't change the meaning of a sentence necessarily, but it does set a tone and operates in the interpersonal realm. Exactly. All right, so for example,

if you are talking about somebody who you just, like they've made some bad life choices or whatever and you're expressing this to somebody else, but you don't wanna make it sound like you don't like that person. Like you wanna express that you still like that person, but they've made some bad life choices

and you're a little disappointed in that. You could say two things. You could say, I love her, but she's dumb, right? If you, like you sound kind of like a jerk. So what you can do is use like, you can pepper sentences with like to kind of pad it. For example, you would say like, I love her, but she's like dumb.

That's, it gets across to the listener like, hey, I still care about this person. I'm not really putting them down. I'm just trying to get across some stuff that I, I'm just getting something off my chest here between you and me. Yeah, absolutely. It's sort of, it works as a softener like this example too.

If someone asks you to go do something, like, hey Josh, you wanna go to dinner and you said, sorry, I'm tired. That's like, oh, well, Josh clearly doesn't want to have dinner with me. But if you said, sorry, I'm just like really tired, then that just softens things. Like the interpretation is, I would really love to go to dinner with you, but I'm tired. And you don't have to say all that other stuff. No, no, it's, it's, No, no, it's a softener. That's a really great way to put it. I think that's how John McQuarter put it, the linguist.

And it also works in reverse too, because it acts as a shielding, right? You're shielding the other person's feelings by adding those likes. You're saying like, I don't dislike you. I'm not trying to be mean here. I just I know you're probably going to be disappointed. So I want to just kind of get this this information across as gently as possible and peppering it

with likes does that. But like I said, it works in reverse. It shields the speaker to in some cases, it acts as a hedge to where you are saying you're giving yourself plausible deniability. You're not saying I'm 100% confident in what I'm saying. I'm pretty sure, but because I'm adding like, it's hedging it so that if I'm wrong, it's not the end of the world. It's not that much egg on my face. So if you were asking, if somebody asked what you were, what you did for a living, and I didn't know, I could say, I think like he's a podcaster or I think he's like a podcaster. That's like, it just hedges it a little bit and it protects the speaker in this case rather than protects the receiver, but it's the same function, essentially.

Yeah. I mean, we do that all the time when we're just pulling something off the dome. We're not sure about yeah But people still email in and tell me how wrong wrong wrong. I am Well, Alexandria Darcy would say that if you use like as a discourse Particle then that means that you are emotionally intelligent Yeah, that means you have very much an awareness of you're speaking to and how your words are being received. And there have been studies that have shown that when people hear speech that do not have like or other discourse particles that, and you know is another one, you know, that people sound robotic and unfriendly and unnatural and that these discourse particles conversationally make people feel at ease. It's almost like hard water

and the likes are water softeners. It's the best that can come up with. Should we take another break? Yes. All right, we and Time is back for another round. We have more insightful conversations between myself, Paul Muldoon and Paul McCartney about his life and career. We had a big bearer of a man, who was called Mal Evans, who was our logo, and he was coming back on the plane. And he said, will you pass the salt and pepper? And I miss her. And I said, what?

So I drew pepper. This season, we're diving deep into some of McCartney's most beloved songs. Yesterday, Band on the Run, Hey Jude. And McCartney's favorite song in his entire catalog, Here, There, and Everywhere. Listen to season two of McCartney, A Life in Lyrics, on the iHeart radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Everyone in our country has a voice. It's something that says not just where you come from but who you are. Welcome to NPR's Black Stories, Black Truths, a collection of podcasts and a celebration of the hosts in journalism who've always spoken truth to power. Our voices are as varied, nuanced, and dynamic as the Black Experience, and stories should never be about us without us. Find NPR Black Stories, Black Truths

on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Sarah Jakes Roberts, host of Woman Evolve Podcast. You may also know me as a pastor, author, wife, mother, business woman and leader. Women are shattering glass ceilings that once limited their ability to dream, grow and change the world. Well, as the definition of womanhood continues to advance,

so does the woman's need to connect and assess where she fits in this ever-changing world around her. No longer do women have to choose between family or career since you can have it all. You're already a superwoman on your own, but imagine how transformative things could be if you allowed yourself the opportunity to embrace sisterhood. Well, over here, we encourage each other. We hold each other accountable. We teach each other and we cast out the spirit of shame.

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["I Heart Radio App"] So Chuck, if you ask people, even people who use the word like, like, where did the use of like come from? When did we start using like in English, spoken English? Most people would, if given the chance to think about it, say, Valley Girls. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's Valley Girls. Valley Girls are teletubbies, one of the two. And you'd be like, it wasn't teletubbies, but also it wasn't Valley Girls.

Valley Girls popularized it, but we were using like way before. But one of the reasons why people think Valley Girls is in part because of a 1982 song by Frank Zappa that introduced Valley Girls to the United States. Like they were pretty much confined to the San Fernando Valley until that Frank Zappa song came along, I think. Yeah.

And this is, you know, part of Greater Los Angeles if you're not familiar. But in 82, he put out the song Valley Girl with his daughter Moon Zappa. And it really, you know, sort of mocked that way of speaking. The movie Valley Girl was not for the movie, the movie came out a year later and that obviously made it even more popular. Other movies like Fast Times or Ridgemont High and then later in the 90s with Clueless

which brought other terms that a lot of people hate like whatever and as if But like you said these things really popularize it. It didn't invent it and we know it because there's actual proof if you go back even just a little while and look at history of in the 1950s and 1960s with with the beats and that the Hep talk or jive talk Bebop they were saying like like crazy and writing it in their books. It was all over the place Yeah, so Dave gives some examples of bop talk or jive talk or jazz talk Crazy was one we use that a lot cool the tops. That's reminds me of Meltormae, gone as in gone girl, dig, hip, and then he includes etc, which I didn't realize was Bob talk. I thought that was Latin.

That's funny. You almost got me. But they would use the word like a lot, like, you know, that cat is like crazy, or, you know, like he is so square, or like I was really grooving. They used it basically in the exact same way, approximate adverbs, discourse markers and discourse particles. The same way Valley Girls in the 80s used it in the same way people of all stripes use it today.

Yeah, and if you were into jazz at the time, you were probably somewhat familiar of Bob talk, but it filtered into the beats who kind of introduced it to an even wider audience in the United States. Like it's, it pops up here there and on the road from Jack Kerouac. So we know at least as far back as the beats and probably before that in the, with jazz musicians in the 40s, like was used in the same slangy way that we use it now,

multiple ways we use it now. But the Valley girls are the ones that seem to have introduced or at least popularized that the latest version or use of like, which is that quotative version where it sets up a paraphrase quote. Yeah. And I think they did not find, and you know, they dug around, I believe that Darcy in her book found uses in England in the 19th century, where they would use the word like in several different ways that we use it now. But that one, the, what was it called again?

What? The, oh, the quotitive use? Yeah, yeah, the quotitive, that's the one that seems to have really been truly born in the 80s. Yeah. And it's probable or possible that Valley Girls did not make that up, but it became part of Valley Girl Val speak, along with like gag me with the spoon and totally tubular and all teenagers talk like that back then. Yeah.

But apparently ground zero for it was the valley that that's where it emerged from. At the very least that's where people thought that it emerged from. Like kids in, I think it's that kids in Ohio weren't necessarily talking like that. I know my sisters didn't talk like that until those movies came out. Hmm. I heard stuff like that. I think it popularized it, but I think teenagers were, I mean, maybe not some of the particular phrases, but the use of like, you know, was definitely around before that movie. Okay. No, no, no, for sure.

I mean, popularly. Right. Okay, but most people point to or were exposed to it from Valley Girls. Not the movie, I'm saying like the concept, the social trend Valley Girls. Right, because of the movie. Right. So that's the one that most people associate with Valley Girls for a reason.

They're the ones who popularize it, but people blame Valley Girls for the whole use of like in a lot of ways. And it's kind of translated since the early 80s into young girls, you don't have to be Valley Girls. Like the idea is just young girls talk like that. They're the ones who use like all the time, if they're infecting the language,

that's what some people think. And that apparently is not just incorrect factually, it's pretty sexist in the way that that disco demolition night riot, where people were just going crazy on disco records in Chicago, was homophobic. Yeah. And, and racist. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, you know, there's a history of that still goes on today of sort of thinly veiled, coded, like it's okay to like, it's not okay to make fun of someone because of, you know, their age or because of their gender identity or their ethnicity or something,

but it's still generally okay to make fun of the way someone might talk, and that oftentimes is coded in this case for young women. Yeah, because kind of as a rule, the contributions, the intellectual contributions of young women in the United States are not, there's not a huge high emphasis on, traditionally there hasn't been, especially among older men. They're very much looked down upon, but again, you can't just be like,

you're stupid because you're a 20 year old girl. But you could say like, you sound really immature because you use like a lot. It's still the same thing. You've just found a different entree into devaluing that person's contributions or that group's contributions. Well, I mean, you need not look any further

than someone like Greta Thornberg. You know? Just use like a lot? No, I'm just talking about when she first came on the scene, sort of all you heard about was like, oh, you know, this young girl, this young girl. She's a rabble rouser. Think it said, you know, generally derisively by a lot of people, generally older men in politics for sure.

Sure. Yeah, no, that's a great example of it. So I said factually that doesn't make, it's not accurate. Our linguist heroes Darcy and Catherine Kinzler So I said factually that doesn't make, it's not accurate. Our linguist heroes Darcy and Katherine Kinsler and others have studied this. They actually do studies to find out who actually uses like and they found that in general, just using like,

men and women use it with about the same frequency. But when you dig down a little further, you drill down into it to get into the real granular meat of the whole subject, kind of like a 1906 packer in Chicago with a really sharp knife and tuberculosis. You find that there are distinctions between age and gender that in the use of like in different ways. Yeah, for sure. So what they found was for the approximate adverb form, meaning, you know, almost are just about

men and women use it equally. The discourse particle, like the softener or the interpersonal like, men actually use it more frequently than women. The discourse particle form like, what's a good example there? The discourse marker would be like emphasis, like, have you seen? Okay, yeah, that one, they found that women do use it more frequently. The big one was the new kid on the block in the 80s, a quotitive, a complimentizer. It's such a stupid word.

It really is. That's the one that is significantly used more frequently by women than men. Yeah. And also, there's this idea that it's just the younger generations that use it. And the younger generations definitely use it more frequently, and in more interesting and diverse ways, but it still filters to other age groups. And there's apparently Darcy included some quotes from Brits in their 70s to 90s, who were using like in ways that we recognize as the slang uses of like. Like one of them says, a 75 year old respondent said, they were just like sitting waiting to die. Can you do a 75 year old British woman impression?

I don't think so. Okay. Yeah, I mean, you know, clear examples of people of a certain age using the word like, the one again, the one big exception is the quotitive like, which supposedly women use or not supposedly, I guess they found in their study, use more than men. And it's also almost exclusively used by younger people. But again, younger people are always the ones that are changing language and thinking up new words and trying out new usages since the beginning of time.

Yeah. So there's a larger question that we still haven't fully answered. And that is, like, do the people who hate like and say it's infecting the language, they have a point. And turns out the answers, no, not really. They have some sort of weird personal vendetta, which may or may not be sexist in nature, or ages at least, that if you look at how the word like is used, it provides all sorts of unique functions that other words don't necessarily fill. Like, remember I said, approximately, would work in some cases, but not in other cases. Like has carved or we've used like to carve out or fill voids that no other words had filled before in spoken

English language. And yes, it looks weird on paper, but we're not talking about on paper. We're talking about in a conversation. And like is a way that people make sure that you're with them still when they're talking to you, that you feel included, that your feelings are being acknowledged. It provides all sorts of really interesting functions. It does. And in short, it's just the way people talk generally. Yes, for sure. All right. Well, if you want to know more about like, just start listening and you will drive yourself mad. And if you don't feel like doing that, just read some linguistic papers on it. There's some interesting stuff out there.

And since I said that, it's time for listener maintenance. I'm going to call this Simpson's Clue, the board game. Hey guys, just finished the episode on Clue. I am so excited to tell you this about the Simpson's Clue board game. Maybe you saw it in your research, but it is so unbranded for you to make sure that you are aware of its existence. In the game, Mr. Burns is murdered, and the characters are Marge as Mrs. Peacock, Homer as Mr. Green, Lisa as Miss Scarlett, Bart as Professor Plum,

Krusty as Colonel Mustard, and Smithers as Mrs. White. Apparently this was later changed. The weapons included Lisa's saxophone, plutonium rod, Bart's slingshot, Lisa's necklace, Extendo glove, and a poisoned doughnut. The locations are obviously all around Springfield. You got Moe's, the retirement castle, the Simpsons house, Mr. Burns office, and the quickie mart. And of course there are lots of Easter eggs. It's just so perfect as a kid that religiously watched The Simpsons reruns every night, getting Simpsons Clue was the best birthday present I could think of, and the only version I have ever had.

Thank you for all the hours of entertainment and third wheeling to your conversations. Or I guess fourth wheeling with Jerry. I love you guys. That is from Margaret Nehoff. Thanks, Margaret. That was a great email. I really feel the urge to go out and buy the Simpsons Clue. Totally. If you want to subliminally act upon us in some sort of way that hopefully is helpful, like getting us to want to buy a really great board game like Margaret did,

you can get in touch with us too. Send us a very nice email to stuffpodcast at iHeartRadio.com Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. to your favorite shows. And, uh, mm-hmm, it's coming back on the plane. And he said, will you pass the salt and pepper? And I miss herding. I said, what? Sergeant Bever.

Listen to season two of McCartney, a life in lyrics, on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Jenna Ashquitz. And Kevin McHale. Hosts of, And That's What You Really Miss podcast. We're reliving the magic of McKinley High by watching all six seasons of Glee. We have exclusive interviews with some of your favorite Glee cast members like Chris

Colfer and Mariah Lee, Darren Criss, Heather Morris, Alex Newell and so many more. Meet us in the choir room while we reveal our greatest memories and untold stories. Listen to And That's What You Really Miss podcast on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. A small town with secrets hidden for centuries. You turn up in Donville just as the town sees its first real crime in decades. And a curious stranger who may be their only chance for survival. I'm talking about the murder and disappearance in small town New Hampshire. What do you think?

This is Consumed, an all new supernatural audio thriller inspired by the novel by Aaron Mankey. I did not wake up this morning prepared to deal with forces beyond my understanding. Please, I call that breakfast. Listen to Consumed on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.