The grammarian your mother warned you about

49greg said:

So did prez Johnson back in the sixties.

Click to expand...

It's actually quite common; that's why it drives me nuts.

49greg said:

I'm thinking of things such as:

"He said, 'like I'm really hungry', youknow"

"And I said, 'Like yeah,'"

"And then we Like went to class."

"That's like so awesome."

And suchlike.

Click to expand...

Yeah, like that's what I mean. Like used as an interjection. Like I never use it in like, you know, narration, but like in dialect it might be like okay.

Like, wow!

49greg said:

I'm thinking of things such as:

"He said, 'like I'm really hungry', youknow"

"And I said, 'Like yeah,'"

"And then we Like went to class."

"That's like so awesome."

And suchlike.

Click to expand...

"'What's, like, wrong with him?' said she at last. " - Robert Louis Stevenson, "Kidnapped", 1886.

Wikipedia has a really interesting article about the word and its many uses. I find this stuff useful for dialogue; a filler word here or there can be very useful in conveying a character's hesitancy or confusion.

Bramblethorn said:

I find this stuff useful for dialogue; a filler word here or there can be very useful in conveying a character's hesitancy or confusion.

Click to expand...

Sorry I don't recall the source, but I fairly recently read an article about scholarly study of "huh?" which apparently exists in MANY language families, not just Indo-European. Languages lacking a leading H sound still contain "unh?" or something very very similar. It's a simple and automatic way of expressing a desire for more information, without the delay of conscious thought. We needn't waste time and brain-cycles formulating a question, "What do you mean by that? Can you tell me more?" Just quickly grunt, "huh?" Very efficient, yeah.