"I am like"

[gxnn]

As an English learner, I notice that many people speak the phrase "I am like" in an informal interview or day to day dialogue, which means something like "I want to say" or "I am just saying or doing" (at least that is my understanding), as in "I am like, wow, it is so beautiful"，but after checking many reference books for English learners, I haven't found any explanation for this word usage.

Perhaps conventional grammaticians don't really care about such slang usages that are popular among native speakers that they do not even include it in their consideration, but they don't know those are the real essence of the language, which make the language so varied and rich in expression.

So would anybody help me to understand better this phrase?

 

[Blase]

Generally the phrase essentially means "I was saying (or I said) something like __" ("I was like, "Dude, that is NOT okay."), "I was thinking (or I thought) something like __" ("I'm like Why does this always happen to me?), or "I felt like __" ("I was like, freaking out!").

 

[LWulf]

"I am like..." was actually a "valley girl" phrase that became part of everyday culture (although that usage derived itself from a 1950's culture usage: "Like, later, like"). As such it's not proper diction, and more slang, but as far as slang goes, it's one of the more forgivable usages, since most people use it without thinking about it.

It's basically a multipurpose usage, although I believe it was derived from "I felt like saying..."

 

[ElectricBlue]

As an English learner, I notice that many people speak the phrase "I am like" in an informal interview or day to day dialogue, which means something like "I want to say" or "I am just saying or doing" (at least that is my understanding), as in "I am like, wow, it is so beautiful"，but after checking many reference books for English learners, I haven't found any explanation for this word usage.

Perhaps conventional grammaticians don't really care about such slang usages that are popular among native speakers that they do not even include it in their consideration, but they don't know those are the real essence of the language, which make the language so varied and rich in expression.

So would anybody help me to understand better this phrase?

Your interpretation is basically correct. If you substitute "said" for "like," in most cases you will find the meaning. The ubiquitous and incessant use of "like" is completely unnecessary, adds nothing to comprehension. It appeared in the late nineties, peaked in the first decade of this century, and mercifully is declining from use (in Australia at least). Its usage was very much a generational thing, and from what I observed, "like" was mostly used as a substitute for a lack of knowledge of other words.

I remember a conversation I heard on a bus, where a teenager was attempting to communicate to a group of friends - in fifteen minutes she must have said "like" maybe a hundred times, and other meaningful words, maybe fifty. She had no idea how to express herself, and her mates had no idea what she was trying to say. "Honey," I thought, "you need learn some new words."

At one point, it was almost like a form of Tourette's syndrome for many kids, like a tic of the brain.

When it is used the same way in written content, which it occasionally is, I just shake my head. It's not a usage you want to adopt.

 

[twister947]

It is, like, dumb. It is, like, not used by, like, real adults with, like, real educations, and does not enhance or enrichen the language. Just, don't.

 

[tnhardon]

As an English learner, I notice that many people speak the phrase "I am like" in an informal interview or day to day dialogue, which means something like "I want to say" or "I am just saying or doing" (at least that is my understanding), as in "I am like, wow, it is so beautiful"，but after checking many reference books for English learners, I haven't found any explanation for this word usage.

Perhaps conventional grammaticians don't really care about such slang usages that are popular among native speakers that they do not even include it in their consideration, but they don't know those are the real essence of the language, which make the language so varied and rich in expression.

So would anybody help me to understand better this phrase?

It’s poor grammar but has become increasing used. The best way to explain it is as a filler word, it serves no meaning. A lot of times it replaces “uhh” or “umm” when people are speaking.

“Like” can be used correctly in a sentence though. You can “like” something which means you have fondness for it. You can also use it in figurative language.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Your interpretation is basically correct. If you substitute "said" for "like," in most cases you will find the meaning. The ubiquitous and incessant use of "like" is completely unnecessary, adds nothing to comprehension. It appeared in the late nineties, peaked in the first decade of this century, and mercifully is declining from use (in Australia at least). Its usage was very much a generational thing, and from what I observed, "like" was mostly used as a substitute for a lack of knowledge of other words.

I remember a conversation I heard on a bus, where a teenager was attempting to communicate to a group of friends - in fifteen minutes she must have said "like" maybe a hundred times, and other meaningful words, maybe fifty. She had no idea how to express herself, and her mates had no idea what she was trying to say. "Honey," I thought, "you need learn some new words."

At one point, it was almost like a form of Tourette's syndrome for many kids, like a tic of the brain.

When it is used the same way in written content, which it occasionally is, I just shake my head. It's not a usage you want to adopt.

Fully agreed. It’s generally taken as evidence of low social standing, poor education and/or simple stupidity. (Of course, those who do speak like that would accuse me, based on my statement, of arrogance, old age and, who knows? racism, homophobia and general lack of cultural flexibility. Probably bad dental hygiene as well.)

 

[MadameSarcasm]

A girl I knew had an English professor who kept a bell on her desk. Any time a student used "like" (other than as a verb or in a comparison), she dinged the bell. The first couple of weeks, she rang that bell dozens of times during class. The students complained bitterly, but the prof kept at it. By the end of the semester, the professor had put the bell away because she no longer needed it.

I wish I could do that in my workplace!

 

[Bramblethorn]

As an English learner, I notice that many people speak the phrase "I am like" in an informal interview or day to day dialogue, which means something like "I want to say" or "I am just saying or doing" (at least that is my understanding), as in "I am like, wow, it is so beautiful"，but after checking many reference books for English learners, I haven't found any explanation for this word usage.

Perhaps conventional grammaticians don't really care about such slang usages that are popular among native speakers that they do not even include it in their consideration, but they don't know those are the real essence of the language, which make the language so varied and rich in expression.

So would anybody help me to understand better this phrase?

I don't use it a lot, but I'm going to disagree with most of the other posters here and defend it.

"Like" can be used in many different ways but the ones we're talking about here are colloquial quotative, or as a metalinguistic unit.

In the colloquial quotative use, "like" is used similarly to "said", but it's used to convey the gist of somebody's words/actions rather than reporting them exactly.

For example, suppose I'm describing Act 3 Scene 1 of Hamlet. I could put it this way:

Hamlet says "To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep; No more; and by a sleep, to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished."

When I use "says", I'm indicating that these are Hamlet's exact words.

But if I'm talking to somebody who's not familiar with Elizabethan English, they may find that hard to understand. It's also a lot of words, especially if I want to give the whole speech instead of just that excerpt.

So I could put it this way, instead:

Hamlet is like, "would it be easier for me if I just killed myself?"

That "like" tells my audience that this is the idea he expressed, but not necessarily in those words. There are other ways to do that in English, but I'm not aware of any that are as compact as the quotative "like".

As well as reporting other people's statements/actions, it can also be used as a hedge to flag other non-literal statements:

my grandma is, like, a hundred years old - this indicates that she's very old, but not literally 100 years old.

It can also be used to soften the emotive content of speech:

Just get on with it, like - here, telling somebody "just get on with it" might be interpreted as aggressive, looking for a fight, but the "like" makes it less confrontational.

It's also used as filler: when the person talking needs some time to figure out what they're going to say next.

These uses are generally frowned on in formal English, but they're still very common in some parts of colloquial English. There are a lot of social and regional differences in how people use this kind of colloquialism.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Bramblethorn - a lucid and pretty complete study, so kudos there.

Exploration of how people use it aside, your last paragraph is key: These uses are generally frowned on in formal English, but they're still very common in some parts of colloquial English. For a student of the language, that is key. Understanding what is being said is good; using it is hardly so.

And, sidebar, I shudder to dwell on the possibility - rapidly becoming a probability - that our schools will be teaching Shakespeare 'in translation' to make it easier for the little darlings. "But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?" does not equal "Cool! It's the bitch!"

 

[Bramblethorn]

Bramblethorn - a lucid and pretty complete study, so kudos there.

Don't give me too much credit, I got about 80% of that from Wiki...

And, sidebar, I shudder to dwell on the possibility - rapidly becoming a probability - that our schools will be teaching Shakespeare 'in translation' to make it easier for the little darlings. "But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?" does not equal "Cool! It's the bitch!"

That's a bit of a straw man, though - that'd be a dreadful translation. A guy who's just fallen in love isn't likely to be calling the object of his desire "the bitch".

Translation has its place, even extremely loose. "West Side Story" and "Throne of Blood" are fine work, and some kids probably understood Shakespeare's versions better after seeing those or other adaptations.

 

[pplwatching]

I agree with Bramblethorn, and raise you a "you know" (for non-English speakers, 'raise' is a poker term meaning to add to the wager). While "like" introduces an approximation or general description, "you know" somewhere in a sentence means "I think that you understand what I mean, even though I am not describing it exactly."

"I was like, you know, really hungry after swimming." can be roughly interpreted as "Having just taken a swim, I was very hungry. I think that you know the feeling."

As a question, "you know?" asks "do you understand what I mean?". "I was like, really hungry after swimming. You know?" can be roughly interpreted as "Having just taken a swim, I was very hungry. Do you understand?"

Personally, I am a descriptivist. While I am a truly outstanding communicator when I need to be (and humble to boot), how language is actually spoken and written matters to me more than the prescriptivist's view of how it should be spoken and written. I love colloquialisms and dialects, while being a pedant at heart.

I guess that makes me bi or lingui-flexible.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It's also used as filler: when the person talking needs some time to figure out what they're going to say next.

That's the usage I cannot abide. Fortunately, my children as teenagers were literate and had active vocabularies, and knew the right words to use. But some of their less literate mates, my god, their conversations were incomprehensible, because not only was it filler, the word "like" became a substitute for a hundred other words, all with perfectly acceptable meanings.

I found the (over) usage lazy, a form of non-communication. It's less common now, thank goodness - I think the worse perpetrators realised just how poor at communication they really were, once they started talking with adults, as adults.

 

[twister947]

I overuse "you know", and fight it constantly. It's a verbal pause, nothing more. Embarrassing.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Translation has its place, even extremely loose. "West Side Story" and "Throne of Blood" are fine work, and some kids probably understood Shakespeare's versions better after seeing those or other adaptations.

I think one of the 'funner' adaptations was Baz Luhrman's William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. It used the original Elizabethan speech, but was set in a very modern Verona Beach, with hot cars, gunfights and helicopters. Were I ever in a position to teach Shakespeare to a classroom of goochewing teens, I'd use this.

 

[LWulf]

I am like tired of this discussion.
heh heh

 

[twister947]

I am like tired of this discussion.
heh heh

No problem.

 

[SimonDoom]

I don't use it a lot, but I'm going to disagree with most of the other posters here and defend it.

"Like" can be used in many different ways but the ones we're talking about here are colloquial quotative, or as a metalinguistic unit.

In the colloquial quotative use, "like" is used similarly to "said", but it's used to convey the gist of somebody's words/actions rather than reporting them exactly.

For example, suppose I'm describing Act 3 Scene 1 of Hamlet. I could put it this way:

Hamlet says "To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep; No more; and by a sleep, to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished."

When I use "says", I'm indicating that these are Hamlet's exact words.

But if I'm talking to somebody who's not familiar with Elizabethan English, they may find that hard to understand. It's also a lot of words, especially if I want to give the whole speech instead of just that excerpt.

So I could put it this way, instead:

Hamlet is like, "would it be easier for me if I just killed myself?"

That "like" tells my audience that this is the idea he expressed, but not necessarily in those words. There are other ways to do that in English, but I'm not aware of any that are as compact as the quotative "like".

As well as reporting other people's statements/actions, it can also be used as a hedge to flag other non-literal statements:

my grandma is, like, a hundred years old - this indicates that she's very old, but not literally 100 years old.

It can also be used to soften the emotive content of speech:

Just get on with it, like - here, telling somebody "just get on with it" might be interpreted as aggressive, looking for a fight, but the "like" makes it less confrontational.

It's also used as filler: when the person talking needs some time to figure out what they're going to say next.

These uses are generally frowned on in formal English, but they're still very common in some parts of colloquial English. There are a lot of social and regional differences in how people use this kind of colloquialism.

This makes sense, but it also underscores that the problem with "like" as a form of communication is that it's noncommital. It's weak. That's characteristic of the "Valley Girl" way of speaking, and to some degree of the way young women in America speak in general. When you replace precise words with "like" in your speech, or you engage in upspeak, or you throw "You know" into every sentence, you are diluting your commitment to what you're saying. You're not 100% behind it. This makes sense for teenagers, for whom noncommitment to seriousness is a way of showing solidarity against the serious world of adults, but it makes an adult look foolish.

There are some other amusing popular colloquial synonyms for "say." For instance, "go" and "I'm all."

"I'm all, 'That's so stupid.' And he's all, 'Yeah.'"

"I go, 'Can you believe it?' And he goes, 'No, that's wack.'"

When I hear adults talk this way, I have a hard time taking them seriously.

 

[LWulf]

This makes sense, but it also underscores that the problem with "like" as a form of communication is that it's noncommital. It's weak. That's characteristic of the "Valley Girl" way of speaking, and to some degree of the way young women in America speak in general. When you replace precise words with "like" in your speech, or you engage in upspeak, or you throw "You know" into every sentence, you are diluting your commitment to what you're saying. You're not 100% behind it. This makes sense for teenagers, for whom noncommitment to seriousness is a way of showing solidarity against the serious world of adults, but it makes an adult look foolish.

There are some other amusing popular colloquial synonyms for "say." For instance, "go" and "I'm all."

"I'm all, 'That's so stupid.' And he's all, 'Yeah.'"

"I go, 'Can you believe it?' And he goes, 'No, that's wack.'"

When I hear adults talk this way, I have a hard time taking them seriously.

Oi! Just to get the unasked question out on the table, what form of colloquialisms IS literately speaking, acceptable? As far as I know, none are, because their usage is either contrary to definition in the dictionary, or proper grammar, or are you taking the piss out of us?

Not for nothin', excessive use, is never impressive because it implies the person's lexicon is vacuous, irregardless. Can you dig me?

 

[Bramblethorn]

That's the usage I cannot abide. Fortunately, my children as teenagers were literate and had active vocabularies, and knew the right words to use. But some of their less literate mates, my god, their conversations were incomprehensible, because not only was it filler, the word "like" became a substitute for a hundred other words, all with perfectly acceptable meanings.

Did they understand one another, though?

This makes sense, but it also underscores that the problem with "like" as a form of communication is that it's noncommital. It's weak.

It's honest, though?

I don't always recognise hyperbole/figurative speech, so I quite appreciate it when people flag those non-literal remarks. If "like" makes it easier for them to do that, I'm all for it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Did they understand one another, though?

In the example I cited of the girl trying to explain something to her mates, judging by the expressions on their faces, no. After fifteen minutes, she just stopped, realising, I think, that she needed a dozen or so extra words. It was truly painful.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Did they understand one another, though?

It's honest, though?

I don't always recognize hyperbole/figurative speech, so I quite appreciate it when people flag those non-literal remarks. If "like" makes it easier for them to do that, I'm all for it.

It may be honest, but so was the Gettysburg Address and so was Paul's letter to the Corinthians. So, come to think of it, is a month-old baby's 2 AM crying or a drunk screaming, "Fuck you!" at another drunk mid-brawl. Mere honesty, IMHO, not a particularly good standard.

As to understanding, 'like' in such usage is the equivalent of 'um'. It doesn't facilitate understanding. That somebody can understand it is, again merely IMO, only evidence of the subject being pretty shallow. Try an experiment - simply delete all the 'likes’ and see what's left by way of semantic content. In the case of EB's bus girl, it wasn't much. Such usages are habits - and not particularly good ones.

Proper communication reduces the likelihood of being misunderstood. The use of slang or corrupted language works against that.

 

[Bramblethorn]

It may be honest, but so was the Gettysburg Address and so was Paul's letter to the Corinthians. So, come to think of it, is a month-old baby's 2 AM crying or a drunk screaming, "Fuck you!" at another drunk mid-brawl. Mere honesty, IMHO, not a particularly good standard.

Nobody said it was. But, all else being equal, honesty is better.

As to understanding, 'like' in such usage is the equivalent of 'um'. It doesn't facilitate understanding.

But it does. When somebody says "my aunt is a hundred years old", I am likely to take them literally. When they say "my aunt is, like, a hundred years old" I take it as hyperbole. Difference in meaning.

"Like" is also used as filler, and we've been discussing that too, but that wasn't the context of the "honesty" comment that you're replying to.

That somebody can understand it is, again merely IMO, only evidence of the subject being pretty shallow. Try an experiment - simply delete all the 'likes’ and see what's left by way of semantic content. In the case of EB's bus girl, it wasn't much.

It sounds as if she was using it as filler. Which, again, is not the usage my "honesty" comment was referring to.

Proper communication reduces the likelihood of being misunderstood. The use of slang or corrupted language works against that.

Over-generalisation. In the example above, slang reduces the risk of a hyperbolic statement being taken literally. As somebody who does speak more than usually "proper" English, I can assure you that it doesn't always lead to clear understanding.

As for "corrupted", I have terrible news for you about the entire history of the English language...

 

[gxnn]

Thanks to all of you who have offered the informative and insightful facts and opinions. They really help and open my eyes.

Today with more people movement and exchanges of cultures around the world, people can know more about each other, but I remember very well that as back in 1980s people speaking the similar Chinese languages across the Taiwan Strait found it hard to do so because both sides used too many different words and expressions that could be fully understood by one side only without doing the background search.

When translating the famous novel "The Catcher in the Rye" some thirty years ago, the Chinese translator who was also a professor of English language of a well-known university told his reader that only he could do such a demanding work because there were so many slang words in the novel that other translators could not get the meanings. But recently when I read the book in its original language, I found it not so difficult to understand because we have watched many US soap operas and TV plays at home to make things easier. But I think that the striking feature of the novel is the repeated use of the simple and colloquial language of the author Salinger.

I also saw a scene in the Hollywood film "First Blood No. 4" I found interesting, where Rambo (John played by Sylvester Stallone) listened silently on the boat he operated a team of mercenary soldiers consisting of English speakers of various forms, with one being in Australian accent.

I was like, did this US man really understand these other people?

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Bramblethorn - I accept what you are saying, but think I will hold to my original opinion.

I was like, did this US man really understand these other people?

Well, sir, you have the usage just about perfect. It still makes my teeth itch to see an educated person use it.