Thesis RSS

Running head: LIKE IS NOT LIKE THAT
Like is Not Like That: A Linguistic and Social Analysis
Rebecca Solomon
A Thesis submitted to the Faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
BACHELOR OF ARTS
Accepted
___________________________
Nancy Bonvillain, Thesis Advisor
___________________________
Eden-Renee Hayes, Second Reader
___________________________
Maryann Tebben, Third Reader
___________________________
Peter Laipson, Provost and Vice President
Bard College at Simon’s Rock
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
2012

LIKE IS NOT LIKE THAT
ii
Abstract
A linguistic exploration of the word like provides a mirror through which we can see
current societal priorities. Beginning with the historical background of the use of the
word like, from Old German and Old English through modern usage, I trace how like has
changed and what it has changed into. The main focus is an innovative quotative using be
+ like: who uses it, and why could this grammaticalization (process of a word evolving
from lexical to grammatical) could be occurring. Like is examined as a subjectivizing
element in speech, used in the position of a particle or quotative to introduce a subjective
quality in youth speech. This subjectivization is in turn explored in conjunction with the
psychosocial concept of ‘face,’ and shown how like can be used to save face. Looking
from a cultural perspective, I explore what possible changes in culture could have
induced a change in the subjectivizing nature of today’s youth speakers, including
influence from the Internet. Examples of subjectivizing words from other languages
complete this exploration of a changing culture.
Keywords: like, grammar, Internet, grammaticalization, youth speech, slang, face

iii
Dedication
To my Mother
-RSS

iv
Acknowledgements
My most heartfelt thanks go to my Thesis Advisor, Nancy Bonvillain. Nancy,
without your constant support and direction I would have no thesis at all. You have
shaped my thinking and my life, and where would I be had I not signed up for your
Linguistics 101 on a whim? Thank you for every day, every edit, and every time you told
me to breathe.
To my thesis readers, Maryann Tebben and Eden-Reneé Hayes, I thank you
dearly. Maryann, your French class re-taught me my love of languages. Eden-Reneé, it
was a blessed shock to know that I could become a psychologist who didn’t do therapy.
Thank you both for the time you have spent, as academic advisor and professor.
To every student, teacher, aunt, uncle, grandparent, and friend I have: Thank you
for listening to my incessant whining and complaining. Thank you for your inspiration,
your incredible knowledge, and your curiosity. To Joelle Chevrier, Michael Xu, Helen
Schmehl, Dana Cummings, and Zachary Doe for your help with languages I don’t speak
and phrases I can’t turn. To William Deng and Sarah Trachtenberg, who keep me sane.
To friends across oceans and time zones, for reminding me about life after thesis.
To Simon’s Rock, for rescuing me.
To anyone who has ever used the word like.
My thanks.

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Table of Contents
Abstract………………………………………………………………………………… ii
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………… iv
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………. 1
Chapter I: Unending Change……………………………………………………………4
How Language Thrives 4
How Like Was Then 11
How Like Is Now 15
Summary 23
Chapter II: Grammaticalization……………………………………………………… 24
Grammar and Lexicon: The Backbone of Syntax and Semantics 25
The Markers We Don’t See 30
Like is Grammatically Correct, or What Is This World Coming To? 37
Chapter III: A Reflective Dictionary………………………………………………… 49
Culture’s Language 50
Saving Face 53
The Subjective and the Fact 55
The American Culture? 61
Priorities 64
Where is Like Heard? 65
And In The End 68
Like is not a Linguistic Revolution 69
References……………………………………………………………………………… 71

Running head: LIKE IS NOT LIKE THAT
Like is Not Like That: A Linguistic and Social Analysis
In nature, geographers can see the record of the effect a rushing river has on the
rock embankment surrounding it: the force of the water will, over time, erode the stone
until a waterway that was once winding and wild will become straight. Water is a
powerful element. Even stone, hard enough to form the continents, succumbs to it
eventually. With time, and a constant source of water in motion, the walls that define the
shape of the river will erode away and reform anew.
Culture is our water. Language is our embankment. Culture, like the flowing
river, will not stop evolving and moving for any reason. From the ancient Romans and
Greeks, to the medieval monk-scholars, to our modern, entertainment-infused society, the
customs and ideas that surround a people clearly change over time. And our
embankments, our language that allows us to see what is important to a society at a
particular time, changes with culture.
Language is intimately interwoven with society, with new words being created
when needed, and older, tired language dying out. Anyone who has ever accidentally
called a flash drive a ‘floppy disc’ will understand. Language use, then, is a mirror
through which we can see society. The words that we deem important obviously have a
defined relationship to the world in which they are used. In exploring a particular picture
that present language paints, as I plan to do in this thesis, I will use this snapshot of
language to see and explain some current issues that are considered important now.
The etymology of a word is like a geologist’s layers of rock: millennia of history,
with clearly defined periods of usage. One layer says that this area was under water

2
during this time, and another layer says that the water dried up and formed a different
type of rock. Words, too, can offer up the history of the area surrounding them. What was
considered important? What words are constants in society? Consider the oft-repeated
statistic that Inuit languages have 37 words for ‘snow,’ and the number changes with
every retelling, whereas English has, at most, five or six. The particular iteration of a
current language tells us what is currently thought about; in Inuit culture, where the
distinct type of snow could mean life or death, the classification of it is obviously more
important than it is in English.
This thesis intends to take a close look at a particular type of language change and
explore all it can tell us about the culture that supports it. The language changes in
question are novel usages of the word like in English. In exploring like, I intend to focus
on some particularly important linguistic themes: youth language and culture, changing
society, and a type of distaste for the new functions of a word which prove useful for its
users. Why, and how, is this change occurring? What does it tell us about its speakers?
Like the river, culture is in the midst of shaping its boundaries, described in language. As
the boundaries change, the shape of the river changes.
Looking at like will serve as an analogy for the rest of language, as well. Like in
and of itself tells us about a culture change, but it is also an analogy for other similar
types of change that point towards a linguistic revolution. The way that we speak is
changing, just as it changes with every generation. Like is both a component and marker
of that change, which is what makes the word and its exploration so important.
In the chapters that follow, I will discuss and explore areas such as the history of
the word like, definitions of the pertinent usages, language change, and language in

3
society. The culmination of this thesis is my own theory of what like shows us about our
culture, and why like has evolved this way. All in all, this thesis intends to deliver a
message: Language change, instead of being the death of language, is its driving force.

4
Chapter I: Unending Change
“The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.” –Socrates.
There is a reason that English from fifty, sixty, or seventy years ago sounds
different than English today. In this section I will focus on particular lexical and
grammatical changes over time, and how they happen. (The why, an expansion of the
above, comes later.) Because this thesis focuses on the current usages of the word like, I
will trace the word back to its linguistic roots and examine the origin of how it came to
look the way it does in English. With examples, some methods of language change will
become clear. In this first chapter, I will investigate issues such as slang, language
mistakes, and how words and expressions evolve. This investigation is to show that
language changes, seemingly much to the chagrin of language purists like Socrates.
Following this explanation of language change will be a history of my topic word, the
word like. It is said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it;
learning from the history of the word may provide insight into where the word is headed.
By looking at its past, we can compare it to other words that have transformed in similar
ways. As the final part of this chapter, I will introduce the focus itself, in the form of an
exploration of modern conceptions of the word: like as a particle, and like as a quotative.
How Language Thrives
English today does not sound or look like the English of two hundred, one
hundred, or even fifty years ago. Now-indispensable words, such as skyscraper and
pants, were considered slang, and therefore unacceptable in some situations, in the 19th
and early 20th
centuries. O. W. Holmes writes in 1846, “The thing named ‘pants’ in
certain documents/ A word not made for gentlemen, but for ‘gents’” (pg. 515). This

5
rhyming couplet shows a typical view of that particular word at the time: not suitable for
“gentlemen” to use.
Pants had a more formal synonym: trousers. Imagine the scene by which the word
changed from a rude expression to an everyday reference to clothing: parents born in the
last decade of the nineteenth century tell their children born in 1915, ‘do not use that
word! You sound uneducated!’ The children grow up; the parents who fight against the
new word grow old and die off, keeping in mind, of course, that there are some adults in
this second generation who still oppose the use of this new slang. The newly-grown
adults have children, still using this ‘uneducated’ word; their children grow up with this
word as a normal part of the lexicon, without any clue that it used to be an unacceptable
word only a generation before. When these children have children, the cycle is complete:
all the dissenters, all those who remember that the word was once unacceptable, have
passed on. The new generations grow up with the previously unacceptable word in the
vernacular, and have no problem using it1
.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines slang as such:
a) The special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a
low or disreputable character; language of a low and vulgar
type;
b) Language of a highly colloquial type, considered as
below the level of standard educated speech, and consisting
1
Pants is, more recently, a part of a newer slang expression: British slang declares ‘a pile
of pants’ to mean ‘rubbish’, or ‘nonsense.’ First seen in print in 1994 in the Guardian.

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either of new words or of current words employed in some
special sense.
My working definition of slang combines elements of both usages described above,
which is telling in itself. Slang is considered to be the speech of the uneducated as well as
colloquial, implying that the level of education has much to do with whether or not a
person speaks in a “vulgar” manner. This thesis hopefully will provide a different view
on slang: instead of vulgarity or disrepute, I regard slang as a driving force behind some
language changes. The likes referred to in this thesis are considered slang at the time of
writing; they are usually unacceptable in formal situations2
such as speechmaking or
interacting with someone of higher social status.
The word pants changed in the perceptions of the people using it. In American
English, it is an indispensable quotidian word. In British English, it would translate to
‘underwear,’ showing that the word evolved in a similar way, but with a different ending.
Slang, alternating from novel and shocking to unremarkable and dull (and sometimes
back again!), is one way that language changes. Another source of language change,
different but related, is grammatical or phonological mistakes that speakers make.
Consider the known nursery rhyme:
“Pease porridge hot,
Pease porridge cold,
Pease porridge in the pot
Nine days old.”
2
French-learners will recall the formal/informal distinction of vous/tu. Although not
taught often, English certainly makes the same distinctions in other ways: hello and hey,
for example.

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Have you ever wondered what pease means? It is a dead form of the singular vegetable,
the pea. Pease used to refer to a singular green sphere, but the language change over time
has taken the word and applied English patterns to the word. According to the OED, the
name of the vegetable came to us from the Anglo-Norman peses around 1400, and we
kept its form but changed the spelling. However, as the singular form ends in an –es
sound, it does not fit into our patterns of singularization and pluralization in English:
singular nouns become plural with the addition of the suffix –s or –es. Thus, with a
singular word ending in –s, English speakers were bound to get confused. Over time,
informal speakers started mistaking the ‘correct’ form of the word, by calling the singular
pea and the plural peas, instead of the traditional pease and peases. Just as in the pants
example from above, those who dissented the mistake eventually lost their voices; pea
was the new word because it fit better into the pattern that the rest of English nouns fit.
The same processes happened with the partly French loanword cerise (cherry, singular).
It becomes uncomfortable for English speakers to ask “for one cheries, please,” because
of the confusion with the –s ending denoting a singular, and so the language morphed
over time to invent the words pea and cherry to indicate the singular forms. These are
examples of back-formation. The word bartend is a back-formation as well: when the
language had the noun bartender, and speakers applied the same patterns that work with
words like teacher and teach. When you take away the –er ending that implies a person
who does the verb, you simply get the verb. Thus, the noun bartender, which originally
had no verb attached to it, was subjected to a similar experience as cerise and pease.

8
The slang example of pants seems to have no rhyme or reason behind the morph
from unacceptably informal speech to a common word of the vernacular. The pease
process makes more sense: a word that once did not fit into the usual grammatical pattern
now fits, even if we had to create some new words to make it work. There are many types
of language change, and many reasons. Some words change to make speech more
comfortable to produce--addressing a woman as ‘mine Anne3
’ turned into the expression
‘my Nan;’ ‘mine Ed’ turned into ‘my Ned.’ English tends to have a preference for open
syllables, such as [my], rather than closed syllables such as [mine]. Some changes took
words that used to exist (“a napron”) and morphed them into the common words we
know now (an apron.) The [mine Annemy Nan] and [a napron an apron] examples
followed exactly the same grammatical patterns of change, albeit in different directions:
the n traveled from either the article to the noun or the reverse, through the same process
of change described above. These words were misheard and misinterpreted, which shows
how mistakes in reproduction of language can influence it.
There are other qualifiers that determine how and when language changes, or does
not: consider l’Académie Française. An institute established in 1635 in France by
Cardinal Richelieu, The French Academy is charged with the responsibility of acting as
an official authority on the French Language. They publish the official dictionary of the
French Language. They also, unofficially, strive to keep French French, separate from
external influences. Many languages have a word similar to ‘computer’ to describe the
same thing: in Japanese, it is pronounced kon’pyuutaa. In Latin America, they call it
3
In older iterations of English, nouns that started with vowels took the possessive
pronoun ‘mine’ rather than ‘my,’ as in ‘mine eye.’ What would now be considered a
grammatical mistake was then the proper form of the word.

9
computadora. Many languages follow this pattern, except for French (of course): they
call their PCs ordinateurs, as an expression of linguistic autonomy. In this case,
l’Académie Française has decided that accepting an English name for an English product
into the French language would be unacceptable. They have, surprisingly successfully,
prevented this particular language adoption in most formal settings, partially for fear of
Americanizing the language. However, colloquialisms will always exist: cool and super-
cool are both used by casual French speakers, and some advertisements use English
words to appeal to a younger, more English-oriented crowd. All the words that
l’Académie Française deems unusable, however, are translated through footnote or
otherwise.
Such language purism can be regarded either as a source of nationalistic pride, or
stubborn anti-progress, or both. With certain histories, a language may choose to attempt
to remain isolated, free of loan-words. For example, when Finland gained its
independence from Russia in 1918, it was decided by the newly-formed Finnish
Government that Finnish would be the national language, disregarding the fact that most
of its citizens spoke Russian equally as well (Trask, 1996). Committees have since been
set up to decide on Finnish equivalents for new technical terms introduced into fields
such as physics, technology, and others (where new words are needed often). The effort
of the Finns is generally well received: Trask (1996) gives the example of the recent
scientific term quark, which was adopted by the Finns as kvarkki.
In the case of interactions between the Finns and Russians, political reasons led to
the drastic language change. When the politics changed, the ideas about the languages
changed as well. Other political changes, such as colonization or mass emigration, cause

10
languages to build and crumble, complexify and disintegrate. When two populations of
speakers of different languages are merged together, such as in the cases of the French
colonization of Haiti beginning in the 16th
century, adult speakers are forced to find ways
to communicate with little common bilingualism. Pidgins, in their most base definition,
tend to form when some words, some grammatical structures, and some gestures of each
language are used in conjunction to provide a mutually intelligible communication
among speakers of different languages. These pidgins often have simplified grammar, but
it is not to say that they are not languages in their own right. Within a few generations of
children born to native- and pidgin-speaking parents, some more complex grammatical
structures start to develop. In this way, we can see how important an influence global (or
local) politics has among its speakers. If shifting global power can give rise to entirely
new languages, what else can it do?
The point of these explorations is to show that there are many reasons that
languages change: to fit into patterns, to make words easier to say, and especially to
reflect the politics and culture surrounding it. Returning once again to the river metaphor,
one must remember that culture will never stop moving with time; the boundaries we use
to describe culture, the embankment of language, will always shift to accommodate,
either by choice (the case of the Finns) or unconsciously (a napron does not sound like a
real word anymore), in order to clearly outline what it looks like now.
In Chapter II, I will explore a specific form of language change. What kind of
language will allow a verbal construction such as, “he’s, like, such a dork”? And
furthermore, not only allowing the structure, but using it constructively! That sentence
means something entirely different without the ‘like.’ How could this new like, either as

11
an interjection or as a quotative (to introduce an almost quote) be constructed and
accepted in modern English? Chapter II of this thesis will focus on grammaticalization:
the process of the change from a lexical word to a grammatical one. Before that happens,
however, I will introduce our word in question. An historical look at the word like will
now provide a base to discuss the current forms at the end of the chapter.
How like was then
Gelíc or lícian? The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a useful and definitive
resource for etymological studies. In their databases are scores of examples of any
English word, starting from the earliest literary appearances until the current forms and
definitions. The OED lists several surprising entries for the Old English history of like:
most surprisingly, two different words! One word, lícian, seems to correspond to the
modern verb forms: I like this, we like each other. The verb has other interesting usages
as well: explained below, like was also used in a manner much opposite to the modern
understanding. However, all of the other forms of like, in ways such as a conjunction, an
adverb, or an adjective, have a different historical background: gelíc. Now, one does not
have to be a linguist or an etymologist to notice a similarity between gelíc and lícian: the
–líc- root appears in both. Why are these words different, but with the same root? Why
are they the same word in modern English? Let us explore.
The study of Proto-Indo-European (PIE), a proposed mother language, involves
looking at patterns across languages to see what possible single language they all could
have come from. There are general rules for language change over time that linguists
have discovered: the sound /p/ is likely to evolve to /f/, for instance, while it is almost
unheard of for /f/ to evolve into /p/. Rules for particular language families have also

12
helped reconstruct what could be this proto-language. What, for example, do the English
words sky, one hundred, stag, and wax have in common with each other? Nothing, at first
glance. But looking at the Romance languages, we may find interesting information
regarding the common ancestors to these words, and how they changed; in Italian, the
translations of those words all start with a sound like /ch-/. In French, they start with an
/s-/ sound. In Spanish, a kind of /th-/, and in Romansh, /ts-/ (Trask, 1996). These words
have all changed from their original form in the reconstructed proto-language, but
linguists can assume that, at one point, all of these words started with the same sound.
The sounds evolved regularly, but differently in each language. Knowing the patterns of
language-to-language, we can reconstruct a proto-word for each of these that would
provide the root for each language to take hold of, and change in their own peculiar ways.
This is the comparative method of historical reconstruction. We can apply similar
patterns on our root –líc-, and attempt to reconstruct its proto-form. Because of the
patterns that expand across Old Germanic, Old English, Old Norse, and Old Saxon,
linguists have reconstructed this root at *-líko, meaning ‘body or form’ (OED, 2012).
Thus, now we know that at some point in history, gelíc and lícian were closely connected
to ‘body or form’ in definition. Now we’ll look at the affixes: ge- for the
pronoun/conjunction/adjective, and –ian for the verb. In Old Germanic, ga- (later ge-)
had a meaning similar to the Latin cum, meaning ‘with’. We can translate our original
gelíc as ‘with body or form.’ Consider it this way: if “he is like a giant,” it is also possible
that “he is with the body or form of a giant.” Old Germanic is, after all, one of the many
languages that influenced English.

13
For the verb form, lícian, we must now consider how the meaning of the word
changed, as well as the form. As early as 1000 CE and through the time of Shakespeare,
like was used in a grammatically unfamiliar way than it is now. In modern times, ‘I like
apples’ means exactly what you would expect it to mean: I is the subject, like is a simple
transitive verb, and apples is the direct object of said transitive verb. However, this was
not always the case. Consider in Hamlet
Laertes: (tests a rapier) This is too heavy. Let me see another.
Hamlet: (tests a rapier) This likes me well. These foils have all a length?
(5.2.251-252)
Hamlet, in saying that the rapier likes him well, truly meant that he liked the rapier! In
this case, and many others besides it, like was used with a reversed definition: instead of
to be pleased by, as it is now, the definition of like used to be is pleasing to! (Stay a
moment and contemplate that. Shakespeare, ever ahead of his time, used both forms
interchangeably, which gives us great insight into the time period of the grammar shift.)
What once was an active verb has evolved to mean the reverse action. However, modern
speakers tend not to realize that like is now the equivalent to a reversed verb, with the
recipient first and the actor second, while its ancestor was an active one.
Although odd-looking in English, this ‘backwards’ construction is not unique.
Consider, if you will, the formation of similar phrases in other some Romance languages:
in Spanish, one says me gusta or me gustan. These phrases are difficult for English
speakers to learn and remember4
, because the literal formation translates to it is, or they
are pleasing to me (like lícian!). Similar in Italian: mi piace or mi piacciono. The indirect
4
Many English-speaking first-year language learners tend to slip into yo gusto or io
piacio (I like…).

14
object, to me, comes first. Then is the verb, and only after the verb is the subject of the
sentence.
The look of like. Over time, words evolve into different forms and parts of
speech. How did gelíc and lícian lose their affixes and transform into the same word in
our modern English? From examples in the OED, I have put together a sample table of
how the process worked. The earliest literary usage was first seen in 888 CE, in Aelfred’s
De Consol. Pilos. As very few records survive, there are centuries of gaps. However,
with the information, we can trace gelíc and lícian through the ages:
Adj., Conj., Noun Verb
c. 1000 CE (Gelíc) Lícian; licode
c. 1100 ---- ----
c. 1200 Lic; licchere Likie; licað
c. 1300 Like; likkest; likest Lykeþ; liki; liked; likey
c. 1400 Licke; liche; leyge; lijk Likith; likid; lyketh
c. 1500 Lyker; like Lykyd; liked; likes
c. 1600 Likest; like Like; lik’d
This table can help us explore many things: non-standard spelling, pronunciation of
earliest forms, and when the words converged in pronunciation. By the 16th
and 17th
centuries, like took on some familiar forms. Likest (1300) looks familiar in Shakespearian
English, and the truncated, one-syllable lik’d (1600) indicates that an earlier version,
liked, was probably pronounced with a second syllable.

15
An intriguing point: even with the adjective, conjunction, noun, and verb forms, a
conspicuously missing form is that of adverb. The adverbial like will prove to be an
interesting source of information for later.
Now, coming from the 17th
century of English straight through to the present, I
give you an exploration of what the word looks like now. This is an investigation as to
why the adjective, conjunction, and noun forms were lumped together under the same
word in archaic English.
How like is now
Like as an adjective. The first like to come up in a definition in the Oxford
English Dictionary (OED) is that of an adjective. Like takes the form of many parts of
speech, but the adjective is the one we will expand upon for the moment. The OED lists
several sections further dividing pronoun usage. Briefly, these subsections are as follows:
1)To indicate Similar Characteristics and Qualities (SCQ)
2) To bring focus to a particular event or action
3) To introduce a clarifying example.
Each of these sections can be divided even further based on their type. In Manner,
Characteristics, and Qualities (SCQ), we can include headings such as “in a way
appropriate to” (She treats me like her daughter. Or, They still fight like children.) and
“what are the characteristics about so-and-so” (What is this class like? Or, What is it like
being a doctor?). The former deals with manner, and the latter with particular qualities or
characteristics. Furthermore, the SCQ like has linguistic rules: the verb to be is obligatory

16
in this construction5
. Without a form of the copula, the listener would assume a
comparison would follow and wait for the end of the sentence. It is, in fact, this addition
that makes this section of like different than others.
The second section of adjective use, the focusing like, is usually followed by a
definite article or an adjective (It was rude of you to talk to me like that. Or, Why can’t
you behave like her?) This is similar usage to the SCQ described above. In fact, one
could replace this like with in the manner of, and the sentence would still make sense:
*Why can’t you behave in the manner of her? However, the words sound stilted and
unusual. A speaker who forms that construction is probably not a native English speaker,
even though the words are coherent. Just another example of how finicky grammar is.
The third definition of adjective use is that like used to clarify. Presenting
examples is an important part of coherent speech. In a typical conversation, one may hear
“like what?” when conversationalists want clarification. This version of like is used by
speakers to ask for, and illustrate, examples to clarify the topic of conversation. I enjoy
many genres of movies like horror, science fiction, and romance. However, this
construction sounds slightly archaic and forced. A more modern fashion is to turn this
statement into a give-and-take exchange: “I enjoy many genres of movies.” “Like what?”
“Like romance, science fiction….”
The list of these three adjective uses described above (SCQ, focus, and clarity)
just touches on the depth of like as a adjective. No list, however encompassing, could
define every fine usage of the word. On to other parts of speech.
5
The copula in the first examples is implied. (She treats me like [I am] her daughter.
They still fight like [they were] children.)

17
Like as a conjunction, like as a noun. Some of the example sentences in this
conjunction section sound similar to those in the SCQ section above. However, the
different likes imply different things about the content. Let’s take the precise example
from above to describe the difference: 1) She treats me like her daughter. As per the
footnote above, there is an implied copula in this statement that would place the like
squarely in the territory of pronouns. However, there is another way to interpret this
sentence: 2) She treats me like [she treats] her daughter. The difference is small, but the
form of like changes. The linguistic analyses of these sentences look like this: in sentence
1, the structure is (S)ubject-(V)erb-(D)irect(O)bject-(Pro)noun-(O)bject(C)omplement6
.
After the pronoun like comes an OC: it is still part of the same clause. Sentence 2 is
analyzed such: S-V-DO-(Con)junction-[embedded sentence: S-V-DO]. There’s the crux:
the conjunction like introduces a subordinate clause, whereas the pronoun like used in
SCQ has only an OC following. Conjunction like introduces an “as if” or “in the same
way” clause.
Like as a noun is used rarely and in only a few set phrases. If you “put like with
like,” or make a reference to “all those toddlers and infants and the like,” you are
constructing sentences with like acting as a noun7
. However limited the meaning, like as a
noun sparked yet another part of speech: the adjective. This is what happens when
speakers take the noun like and use it as an adjective: They replied in like manner. The
manner here, of course, is being described by the adjective which really means the noun
6
An object complement (OC) is a part of speech necessary to complete the object by
means of the verb. “They call Eleanor the boss” or “we elected him chairperson” are both
examples of OCs.
7
Note that of all the usages described, this is the only like in front of which the word the
can be placed comfortably. You put the like with the like. In English, articles only come
before nouns.

18
described above. Grammar is easy for native speakers to form, but extremely difficult to
explain8
.
These conjunction and noun usages are rather limited because of the nature of the
word. Used primarily as an adjective, like can be shaped to take other parts of speech
because of the flexibility of our language; for the most part, those phrases are few and far
between. There is one more part of speech, however, that absolutely must be discussed in
detail (as it provides the groundwork for this whole thesis): like as an adverb.
Like as adverb. This section regards concepts central to this thesis. Each section
of adverbial like in the OED is labeled “informal”. Informality and slang are recurring
motifs throughout this writing, because this thesis tends to explore WHY our adverbial
likes are labeled informal. As stated above, the archaic forms of like, gelíc and lícian did
not evolve directly into an adverbial form. How, then, did we get these most interesting
forms of like: the “meaningless” filler word, and the quotative? They must have come
from somewhere. But first, a bit more clarification on how adverbial forms of like
function in sentences.
The first focus will be that of like as a filler word. This word, placed in the middle
of sentences, seems to carry no meaning of its own and is simply placed to cover a crucial
moment of silence between words. For example (excerpts from Romaine & Lange,
1991):
- and there were, like, people blocking, you know? (pg. 244)
- and she started to, like, really go for him (pg. 250).
- So I tell him how I’ve got to, like, take responsibility (pg. 252).
8
This sentiment, of course, will resound profoundly in chapter II. Why is native-language
grammar so intuitive that we don’t even know that we know the rules?

19
According to Robert Underhill (1988), the particle like provides focus on new
information introduced in the sentence. Like is, he says, “neither random nor mindless”
(pg. 234). Underhill makes a difference between the like that means ‘approximately’ and
the focuser like. I consider both the same part of speech, with his indication a finer
nuance. The point is, neither is meaningless. If a speaker is relating the physical
characteristics of someone new in her life and announces, ‘he was, like, seven or eight
feet tall,’ the like plays the role of letting her listeners know that she is approximating,
and probably understands that most men are not seven or eight feet tall. She allows a
sense of focus (on the height of the man), approximation (a range of heights), and
hyperbole (taller than one can reasonably expect) just by using one particle.
The sentence would still make syntactic sense without the particle like, even
without semantic sense, and the way that it is spoken sounds as if there is a slight pause
before and after the word. In regular speech, the word sounds as if it is surrounded by
commas. Contrast this to the next like example, which is never surrounded by commas.
Also, note how this adverbial usage of like invites hyperbole. By that I mean a speaker
can use this particle like, and follow with any unnaturally over-the-top ending. This like
indicates that such is about to happen, and quiets any possible contention or correction
from the listeners. Without being taught, both speaker and listener know that
incorporating a like allows a distance from the truth. A more in-depth exploration on the
concept of distancing from truth comes later in this thesis.
The other adverbial like that necessitates exploration and explanation is the
quotative. The quotative like is a growing part of speech among American, British, and
Canadian speakers (Macaulay, 2001; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy, 2004 Tagliamonte &

20
Hudson, 1999;). The part of speech in question is that used in casual language to
acknowledge that an approximation of a quote is coming. In listening to young speakers,
one can casually hear it across genders, classes, races, and situations everywhere English
is spoken natively:
a) -I was like, ‘how come you have to do that?’
-and she was like, ‘I’m not even doing anything.’
-and I was like, ‘[exasperated noise/eye roll].’
b) -It was like, ‘why can’t you just buy a ticket?
c) -It was like, ‘come on.’ Like ‘just do it already. Nobody cares about your
five-thousand safety rules.’
In listening to young speakers, this phenomenon gets more interesting the more often I
hear the quotative construction. It is clear, listening to everything that follows the be +
like introduction, that nobody is expected to accept the quote as verbatim speech, but
rather as a dramatic rendering of what may have happened. The quotative like allows a
speaker to add his or her own emotional inflection, without worrying on either side of the
conversation about things like facts or recitation.
Many questions arise from the introduction of this quotative like, and especially
when it is being spoken of as a grammatical structure rather than a verbal tic or
incompetence. I will spend a fair amount of time discussing this quotative like, and an
analysis of the grammatical structure of the particle like is just as important. The most
important question that occurs to me when I contemplate these new grammars is, why?

21
What is the point of new quotative grammar? The answer to this why question will have
to wait for further exposition on a particular type of language change. Suffice to say, for
now, that the previous ways of introducing quotes no longer seem to be sufficient for
modern speakers to express the thoughts they want to.
Another question this topic raises is, how did this new structure become orally
accepted in the speech of the youth? This can be answered more readily. As discussed
above, language constantly changes. The examples of [peasepea] and [a napronan
apron] highlight a different kind of change than this, but the changes occur the same way.
English is a fascinating language if only for the reason that it is so malleable. Words that
started life as an adjective can be reinvented as a verb: consider lazy. The verb to laze
was invented as a back-formation, as speakers started to assume where the adjective lazy
actually came from. In English, words tend to morph from verbs into their
complementary adjectives; with laze, there was no verb for it to morph from. However,
speakers adopted the patterns of words such as dancer and teacher, which both evolved
from their respective verbs, and invented the verb to laze.
Words that start as nouns can transform in the blink of an eye into verbs: the one
who fooled the royals was once the court fool. Or, in a contemporaneous example, what
used to simply be the name of a multi-billion dollar search engine is now also a verb,
recognized in dictionaries and by teachers, that is the act of using that multi-billion dollar
search engine9
. English is malleable in that you can presént a birthday présent, and that is
acceptable and understandable! The point is, words in English that start as a particular
part of speech can often be transformable into other parts of speech.
9
If you don’t know which one I’m talking about, you can Google it.

22
-Bill Patterson, Calvin and Hobbes
As stated before, the archaic forms gelíc and lícian did not evolve directly into an
adverbial form. However, looking closely we can extract a few similarities. Underhill
(1988) introduces a focuser like particle: he says in introduction that the nonstandard like
“functions with great reliability as a marker of new information and focus” (pg. 234).
Looking back at my earlier exploration of How Like is Now, there is another part of
speech with similar intent. I discussed a pronoun form of like that acts as a focuser as
well: “It was rude of you to talk to me like that.” The nonstandard like as a focuser works
to introduce new information: “it was, like, Meatless Monday in the cafeteria again. Ew.”
The difference is the necessity. Although the Meatless sentence would not be identical
without the particle like, it would still make sense. The former, however, needs its focuser
like in order to function syntactically. The first is necessary for the sentence to work; the
second is not. There are patterns one can follow to find where these nonstandard likes
come from, but they tend to be completely new words. This progression is the
introduction of how the new forms came about, in an historical sense. The new forms
evolved from their predecessors. The next chapter, Grammaticalization, will cover in
more detail how the new forms evolved in the modern sense.

23
In Chapter III, I will address the following question: What does it mean? What
does this new quotative form mean in English, and how has it become, in a way,
grammatical?
Summary
Language change is constant, unavoidable, and useful. We can look at the
particular language change of like, and its history, to explore how culture and its priorities
are changing. In the next few chapters, I focus more fully on a particular type of language
change described above, and show how this grammaticalization may influence the way
that like is seen in society. These foci together aim to paint a complete picture of this
relatively new slang not as an infestation, but rather a boon that helps modern speakers
communicate with one another in a culture unlike anything we have ever seen.

24
Chapter II: Grammaticalization
“The past is always tense, the future perfect.” –Zadie Smith
“From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will
not put.” –Winston S. Churchill.
Grammaticalization is the process by which a lexical word, or a word with a
specific referrent, evolves into a grammatical word. This chapter, focusing on this
particular type of language change, will begin by first identifying what a grammatical
word is and what it does. The first examples will be from Turkish, Mandarin Chinese,
and Mohawk, and with that base will move to examples of grammatical words in English.
Because grammar is expressed so immediately to its young learners, most native English
speakers have trouble identifying exactly what their grammar is. A speaker will easily
and fluently construct a clause such as, ‘he was walking,’ but many would balk at the
idea of creating a third-person-singular past-progressive construction of to walk from
scratch. (Hint: it’s the same phrase. Imagine how many rules a speaker must cycle
through before finding the correct construction! Hmm...third person- okay, that’s he or
they. Oh, singular? Must be he. Let’s see… past? Does that take a have auxiliary verb, or
a be? and so on for every element of the task. Of course, native speakers never need to be
taught these rules, and do not need to recognize the rules as such. ) Examples in other
languages are first needed to identify what grammar can do; English examples follow
later.
The next section in this grammaticalization chapter will be an exploration of how
this change actually happens. Starting with the quotative like, I will make the argument
how some adverbial likes can be removed from a sentence without collapsing its
integrity, but that the quotative like cannot. The quotative like serves a grammatical

25
function. I will also explore other possibilities of grammaticalization in process.
Grammar, the support scaffold on which we build our decorative words, changes much
more slowly than those words which are hung upon it (although some people tend to
object to both types of changes.)
This chapter will end with a discussion of why grammaticalization happens, with
a specific focus on the idea of metaphor. Drawing from the prodigal linguist,
Giambbatista Vico, I will explore the theory that all of language is metaphor built upon
metaphor; metaphors are born, they live, and they die. And new language is created upon
the linguistic remains of dead metaphors, just as new cities are built on the remains of the
ancient ones. This metaphor discussion will lend itself quite nicely to my quotative like,
for like itself is simply a newborn metaphor. The question of ‘why’ arises; why do
speakers build new language? Why do speakers allow for, even NEED
grammaticalization to happen? In short, the old language is no longer as useful for
expressing the new ideas of the culture. To explore those new ideas, we will turn to the
third chapter, which focuses on the metaphorically reflective qualities of the lexicon.
Grammar and Lexicon: The Backbone of Syntax and Semantics
A Foreign Introduction
Almost all words and morphemes in standard American English fall into either
the category of grammatical or lexical. Many words have definitions, referring to
something that does exist in either abstract or concrete forms. These words are lexical;
they provide the topics that are being discussed. The OED contrasts lexical (pertaining or
relating to the words or vocabulary of a language) with grammatical (pertaining to
grammar). Grammatical words provide the structure upon which to convey these lexical

26
words. For grammatical words, there is rarely a referent, that is, the thing that the word
refers to. Instead, we find a function that the grammatical word provides. Some words in
English-- or any other language-- play double duty: in some contexts they provide lexical
content, and in others they are used grammatically. Moreso, Teresa Meehan (1991)
argues for a scale of “different degrees of grammaticality,” (p. 37), which is to say that
there are some words in English that do not fit neatly either in the lexical or grammatical
category, but rather somewhere in the middle.
In order to provide examples of what grammatical words can be used for, I turn
now to examples in some languages that use different syntax structure from English.
Because English grammar seems effortless for any native English speaker, it is difficult
to start out with our own language to determine what makes a word grammatical or
lexical.
Turkish: Agglutinating. Different types of languages fall under different
classifications depending on what types of word-formation processes they use. Turkish is
considered an Agglutinating language: its grammatical morphemes are often in the form
of affixes, which provides the ability of combining many within one word. Because of
this practice, the order of morphemes provides the means by which the sentences can be
understood, like English.
In these following examples, taken from Nancy Bonvillain’s Language, Culture,
and Communication (1997), we start with the root of one verb and build upon it, showing
how the addition of new grammatical morphemes change the meaning of the sentence.
Note the abbreviations used below: INF = infinitive; CAUS = causative; PAS = passive;

27
NEG = negative; PAST = past tense. The morphemes that are untranslatable, and need a
label rather than a translation, are the grammatical morphemes.
1a. stem: öl- “die”
öl-mek “to die” (stem + INF)
öl-dür-mek “to kill” (stem + CAUS + INF)
öl-dür-me-mek “to not kill” (stem + CAUS + NEG + INF)
öl-dür-ül-mek “to be killed” (stem + CAUS + PAS + INF)
öl-dür-ül-me-mek “to not be killed” (stem + CAUS + PAS + NEG + INF)
1b. öldüre bile meseydim
“I wish I hadn’t been able to kill”
öl - dür -ebil- eme - sey - d - im
die-CAUS-able-NEG-wish-PAST-I
(p. 18-19)
Some of the morphemes used in Turkish are not directly translatable into English. These
words are less vocabulary and more ‘glue’ to hold the vocabulary together. A Turkish
speaker would likely have trouble explaining exactly what dür means, just as many
English speakers would have trouble explaining what the –th in warmth meant.
Mandarin: Isolating. The following examples in Mandarin may shine some
different light on what grammatical words look like, and what functions they can provide.
Some basic sentences in Mandarin show us different grammatical patterns from Turkish;
they fall into different language categories. Mandarin is an isolating language, which
provides some clues as to how the markers will interact with lexical words; in this case,

28
they are free morphemes (i.e., not bound to the lexical word to which they refer).
However, because of the presence of many homophonic syllables, words are generally
formed with compound of one-syllable/one-character words. In the following example,
the abbreviation for question marker is QU
2a. Nǐ shì měiguó rén ma?
“Are you American?”
you-are-beautiful-country-person-QU
(All Mandarin sources from Joelle Chevrier)
There are other differences inherent in the language: because Mandarin is a tonal
language, it is nearly impossible to use inflection as markers the way we do in English
(consider the different tone of voice used in ‘we’re going to the mall.’ and ‘we’re going
to the mall?’). Mandarin uses particles to change or define the emotional input of the
sentence, similar to tag formation in English. For example, in the above sentence, ma is
used as a general question marker. Below, we see an example of what the particle ba can
provide instead; the abbreviation QuT is for question marker, tag:
2b. Nǐ shì měiguó rén ba?
“You are American, right?”
you-are-beautiful10
-country-person-QuT
Ba provides the function of expecting the answer to a question to be yes, in some cases,
transmitting a pragmatic function rather than a referential definition.
10
It has been pointed out to me that because of the high number of homophonic syllables
in Mandarin, the syllable měi could be translated to a number of different words.
Originally from the –mer- in American, this iteration of měi was chosen to have a nice
meaning.

29
Other particles play other grammatical roles in Mandarin. Because there are no
tense or case endings, meaning is provided entirely by the order of the words. If a speaker
wants to bring a direct object to a different focus in the sentence, there is a particle that
allows this movement to happen. Bà, with a falling tone, is a different word than the
previous coloring particle. It is a noun meaning ‘a handle’, but it is rarely used such. With
a different inflection, ba1
(level tone) provides either the definition of ‘to hold, contain,
grasp, take hold of’ OR allows the object of a sentence to be fronted to an earlier
position:
3a. Wo1
da si le ta3
(falling-rising).
1st
person sg. beat death/to die [completion particle] her.
I beat her to death.
3b. Wo1
ba1
ta3
da1
si1
le.
1st person sg. [fronting/focusing particle] her beat death/to die
[completion particle]
I beat her to death.
What English can do with vocal stress, Mandarin does with spoken particles. This ba1
is
an example of a grammatical structure, as well as the le above, which indicates the aspect
of the verb: ongoing, completed, or otherwise. Because Mandarin is an isolating
language, its grammatical words are separate from the words they modify, unlike the
above examples in Turkish (which is an agglutinating language.)
Mohawk: Polysynthetic. Yet another variety of language, of the polysynthetic
type, Mohawk uses its grammatical morphemes to provide other structural support to the
façade created by the referential words. Polysynthetic languages combine many

30
morphemes within a single word, in a manner similar to the agglutinating language of
Turkish. However, the rules of morpheme combination are “not as regular as they are in
agglutinating languages” (Bonvillain, 1997, p. 19). The grammatical morphemes
themselves, as well, describe much more complex meanings in some cases: person,
number, mood, location, simultaneity of action, and so on. The following examples
illustrate how untranslatable other types of grammar can be. (Note that ˜ over a vowel
indicates that it is nasal.)
3a. tehatkahtun y us
“He looks all around”
te -h - at -kaht- u - nyu -s
two-he-self-look-in state of-all around-doing
(p. 19)
Looking at the direct translation of each syllable, the sentence is incomprehensible in
English. For those born in the language, however, Mohawk is as natural as English is to
native speakers.
The Markers We Don’t See
Any language will look different to a native speaker and to an outside learner. In
the foreign examples above, it is easy to get lost in the complexity of their grammars and
wonder, ‘how can they ever remember all that?’ What is hard to do is to remember that
those who speak English fluently do it too in speaking English. In that previous sentence,
I have conjugated three verbs (is, is, and do), left one verb in the infinitive (remember),
made one verb a gerund (speaking), and put a relative clause in front of a dependent
clause (what is hard to do…. that we speak…). I did not have to follow lists of conjugated

31
verbs, or rules of when to leave a verb in the infinitive. The grammar rules for a native
language are known intimately to its speakers, and it is precisely this reason that native
grammar is difficult to discuss. Native speakers often do not recognize grammatical
markers until they are pointed out to them: the –th affix in warmth, for example, or the –y
in easy (with ease).
As I mentioned before, one can think of language as a structure built from sounds
and spaces and transferred from the mouth of one to the ears of others. This structure can
look like scaffolding with the real purpose built upon the structure. The scaffold, the
words that provide support and skeleton, are made of the grammatical words. The
purpose of the structure comes in the form of the lexical words. In the following
examples, the scaffold will remain the same while the other parts of the structure move
around.
-I kicked the ball to you.
-She handed the phone to me.
-We delivered the package to them.
These three sentences have similar basic structure: someone did something directly to
something, and indirectly to something else. The grammatical scaffolding provides the
envelope within which to deliver the lexical letter.
Some grammatical markers in English are readily identifiable. In the past
sentence, the –al in grammatical, the –ly in readily, and the –able in identifiable are
grammatical markers that get added onto particular parts of speech to transform them into
other parts of speech. In these cases, the –al changes the word from a noun to an
adjective. As every schoolchild was taught, -ly makes an adverb, and the –able is a very

32
productive suffix, changing a verb into an adjective describing the object of that verb (I
identify it; it is identify-able.) Some other affixes, however, usually pass unnoticed in
every sentence. The plural marker, -s or –es in English, certainly functions as one. Other
important markers in English are the past tense, -d or –ed, and the suffix which means ‘in
the process of,’ the progressive –ing.
1 -The cat likes the dog.
-The cats like the dogs. –[note the change in verb]
2 -He walked.
-He walks.
-He is walking.
3 -I read.
-You read.
-She reads.
The sentences in each set differ in their delivery, but the content stays very similar. If
continuing with our postal analogy, the letter has stayed the same but the envelope has
changed. Note that the -s on the verb like and read is also considered a grammatical
marker: it allows us to tell the difference between verb conjugations, which allows us to
tell whether I walk or he walks11
.
In the past few paragraphs, by the way, the minute underlining has been an
attempt to draw the attention of the reader to grammatical markers English that are
11
Irregular words do not follow the same patterns that the usual rules dictate. However,
children will often assume they do before they are taught otherwise: “Yesterday we
runned around the park!”

33
normally glossed over by speakers and readers. Consider how many of these markers we
use every day, if there are this many present in the past few sentences.
Because of English’s convoluted history, there is, of course, a story behind these
endings and why we only have some. Old English had lists of person-endings, including
an entirely new person and number to worry about (second singular). Over time, and with
influence from other languages, most of the person endings on verbs dropped away.
German, however, retains case endings on articles and adjectives:
Article ‘Beautiful’ ‘Table’
Nominative Der schöne Tisch
Accusative12
Den schönen Tisch
Dative Dem schönen Tisch
Genitive Des schönen Tisch
This table represents only one of three genders in German, masculine, and only a regular
conjugation. There are only a few words to have carried over similar endings in English:
‘he’ goes to ‘him’ in the accusative, and ‘they’ goes to ‘them.’ There are few other words
that have case endings in English; we have simplified.
The English grammar affixes discussed above represent a fair number of the
affixes we use, but by no means all. Because of its diverse history, English has simplified
the types of case and tense endings to close to none (we do not even have an ending to
indicate the future tense of verbs!). However, there are multitudes of languages with
12
It has been pointed out to me that there are two types of accusatives in German, taking
two different articles: the indirect and direct objects both fall in the accusative case, but
have distinct endings.

34
fewer endings than English: pidgins and creoles, for example, tend to have almost none
of the grammatical markers that more established languages do.
James While John Had Had Had Had Had Had Had Had Had Had Had a
Better Effect on the Teacher. This string of words, although totally incomprehensible,
is a real, grammatically correct set of sentences given proper punctuation and context.
(Discussing two answers on a grammar test: James, while John had had ‘had,’ had had
‘had had’; ‘had had’ had had a better effect on the teacher.) Its real purpose in this thesis,
however, is to introduce a different type of English grammar: words that play both a
grammatical AND a lexical role. Our auxiliary verbs, be, do, and have, play double duty:
they can provide both a lexical function and also a grammatical one. For the lexical, the
verbs indicate an action or a stative rather than an aspect:
1 -I am a student.
-We do our homework.
-They all have stress-related disorders.
These same words also provide grammatical function to mark aspect, or use as a question
word.
2 -You were running yesterday. (Progressive Aspect)
-Did you run into him?
-I had/have13
/will have gone to the store (by the time you got/get here)
(Perfect Aspect)
13
This have provides a different type of verb conjugation than the others in its group:
while had and will have necessitate a secondary clause for completion, have generally
assumes that the action occurred before and up to the present.

35
If asked to explain what the did in example 2 means to a foreign learner, many English
speakers would have difficulty defining the meaning. The reason is because ‘did’ in this
case provides a function, rather than a definition: it functions as a question marker, or as
an emphatic (“We did walk the dog!”). This emphasis is indicated with a stressed
syllable, as well as the presence of ‘did’.
These grammatical words generally pass unnoticed in everyday speech. English
speakers know how to use them, and they are processed unconsciously, almost akin to
muscle memory. However, we do notice a misuse or a lack of the idiomatic question
word; a conscious laboring to use do correctly, or disregarding do entirely, is a marker of
a non-native speaker.
“We’re Gonna Be…”. Although generally unrecognized in formal speech, gonna
is an important example that must be discussed in the difference between lexical and
grammatical words. Any speaker, formal or casual, will indicate and understand that
gonna is a contraction of going to. However, there is information contained in this
contraction that is understood at a sub-verbal layer: a speaker can functionally say I’m
going to the concert, but not *I’m gonna the concert, EVEN THOUGH the contraction
replaces the very same words. Why not?
Here we have a distinct representation of the difference between lexicon and
grammar. The phrase ‘going to’ can be used both ways: lexically, as an actual transfer of
a body from one place to another, or grammatically, to indicate the future of an event.
Gonna can only replace the grammatical form of the phrase. For totally arbitrary reasons,
this contraction has evolved to replace only one usage: grammatical.

36
The grammatical usage of going to was seen in print as early as 1482, in the
medieval writings of the Monk of Evesham (Oxford English Dictionary, go). These two
usages have coexisted since then, and most likely before. However, the two have evolved
different colloquial contractions, for reasons unknown. The grammaticalization allowed
gonna to replace only grammatical usages of the phrase. However, consider an informal
way of speaking the verb: “we’re goin’ta the store”. Over many generations of use and
misuse, the two types of phrase have been grammaticalized differently.
In a complementary example, consider the contraction of the phrase “has not,”
hasn’t. In American English, hasn’t will usually only replace the grammatical function.
However, in British English, it can be used perfectly comprehensibly as a replacement of
the lexical phrase: “She hasn’t a clue.” In American English, this phrase would
necessitate another verb, or take a different form altogether: “She hasn’t got a clue,” or
“She doesn’t have a clue.” These are simply grammatical differences between two similar
dialects.
The point of these above examples in languages different and similar to English is
to indicate the difference between words that function lexically and words that function
grammatically. This difference brings us back around to the topic at hand: the word like,
and what is happening to it. The distinction itself is important to understand before
applying it; something interesting is how something so intuitive and innate requires so
much explanation. I think the closest reference is trying to explain muscle memory—it is
a knowledge that the body has, acquired without the necessity (or possibility) of words to

37
explain the knowledge14
. Therefore, trying to apply words to memories that were not
encoded with them proves difficult.
Like is Grammatically Correct, or, What is this World Coming To?
The Cat and the Pole
Elizabeth Gilbert’s novel Eat, Pray, Love (2006) follows the author in her travels
through Italy, India, and Indonesia. While she is studying at an ashram in India, she
recounts a “cautionary fable”:
For hours a day, a great saint and his followers would meditate on
God. The only problem was that the saint had a young cat, an
annoying creature, who used to walk through the temple meowing
and purring and bothering everyone during meditation. So the
saint, in all his practical wisdom, commanded that the cat be tied to
a pole outside for a few hours a day, only during meditation, so as
to not disturb anyone. This became a habit—tying the cat to the
pole and then meditating on God—but as the years passed, the
habit hardened into religious ritual. Nobody could meditate unless
the cat was tied to the pole first. Then one day the cat died. The
saint’s followers were panic-stricken. It was a major religious
crisis—how could they meditate now, without a cat to tie to a
pole? (p. 205-206)
14
Consider the 2001 film Amélie, in which the title character breaks into a foe’s home
and switches the bathroom door’s knob and handle; a muscle memory that the foe had
developed, reaching for the handle, was forced to be reconsidered when the memory
failed him (because the handle was now a knob). He consequently thought he was going
insane.

38
This fable, as unrelated as it may seem, lends an illustration to the process of
grammaticalization. There are parts of speech that start occurring colloquially because
they are useful in expressing things that were difficult to express beforehand; over time,
what started as a useful invention becomes habit, and habit becomes obligation. We see
this in the anecdote above, and we see it with the evolution of like in English. The first
task is to show that like is useful: it is not simply the meaningless syllable that many
assume it to be. Once we establish its usefulness, we can then follow its progression from
useful habit obligation.
To Make it Subjective: To Subjectivize
As mentioned in the previous chapter, there are two types of like usages that I am
focusing on: the particle and the quotative, which I will designate like1 and like2
respectively. In order to distinguish the particle from the quotative, which I do consider
meriting distinction, like1 will henceforth only refer to the particle, and like2 to the
quotative. The two are at different stages of Meehan’s (1991) grammaticalization, so we
shall address their usefulness separately.
Meehan (1991) introduces the process of grammaticalization as a transformation
from a lexical itemfree grammatical morphemeaffix. She argues against Underhill’s
(1988) conception of like-as-particle as ungrammatical: For Meehan (1991), the new
meaning of like developed from older meanings, “in the way that other grammatical
morphemes change their meaning in the process of grammaticalization” (p. 38). By this,
she means that usages of like1 have possibly stemmed out of earlier interpretations of
conjunction or noun like. Consider types of like as examined in the previous chapter:
adjectives can be used to 1) describe manner, quality, or characteristic; 2) to bring focus

39
to a particular event or action; and 3) to introduce a clarifying example. Now, consider
these matched pairs of sentences, the first of each using a grammatically standard like,
and the second of each using its related nonstandard like1 :
1: similar to
a) -He is so strong, like an ox.
b) -He’s, like, enormous!
2: as if
a) -It was like a storm had suddenly broken.
b) -And then it was, like, snowing… like, snowing really hard.
3: such as
a) -I wish I had a pet, like a dog or a cat.
b) -They wouldn’t give me money for the movie, like, come on Mom, it’s
not even that much.
Notice the grammatical similarities between a) and b) of each pair: even though they both
tend to indicate similar things, a) is formally acceptable and b) is not. This argument is
the reasoning that Meehan uses to describe the further grammaticalization of like. The
new adverbial likes are, possibly, simply evolved from previous usages.
These similarities are not coincidences. Just as words change parts of speech, as
discussed earlier, they also change functionality. The adjective lazy becomes the verb to
laze. The company name Google becomes a verb. And, in the same vein, the adjectival
like discussed in the last chapter becomes a particle like, with similar meaning but
different function. The new particle word of choice could have easily evolved from as in,
but for seemingly arbitrary reasons speakers moved towards like instead. The goal here,

40
in talking about its grammatically sanctioned ancestors, is to emphasize the functionality
of like1 and not dismiss it out of hand as something meaningless.
Consider the difference between these sentences:
1. The movie was terrible.
2. The movie was, like, terrible.
Adding the usage of like1 does not change the utterance itself. Rather, it provides a
coloring effect that changes the emotion behind the statement. Sentence 1 sounds
objective: this movie is known by most people to be terrible. Of course, for the moment
(in discussing objectivity and subjectivity), we will ignore the fact that ‘terrible’ is by its
nature a subjective assessment. Let it be understood that with the addition of the particle
like, the utterance takes on a subjective quality. That is, what started as a statement of
understood fact becomes a personal opinion. This is a role that like1 plays in speech: it
functions as a cue from the speaker to the listeners. Just as the Mandarin ma functions as
a question morpheme, like1 functions as a subjectivizer morpheme. It makes whatever is
being said subjective.
This word, serving a purpose rather than providing a definition, falls under the
previously discussed category of grammatical words. Grammar happens every day, in
every sentence; speakers may not recognize that this is the role that like1 plays, just as
they may not recognize that the only English nouns that retain case endings are personal
pronouns15
, but we use them to convey purpose nonetheless. This is the beauty of
grammar: in a native language, we need not know the rules to form a perfect structure.
15
Ime, hehim, sheher, weus, and theythem. Consider: I (subject) carry the
child (object). The child (subject) carries me (object). I changes, the child does not.

41
The question that arises now is what difference occurs when using like1 in a
sentence and not using it, because taking it out of a sentence does not initiate structural
collapse. The linguistic difference is of objectivity vs. subjectivity. The pragmatic
difference, however, is one of non-authority. Many times, subjectivity is used to allow
leeway between what is being said and the actuality of the matter. Speakers use this
subjectivizer to distance themselves from the facts: leave me unaccountable, don’t take
that as the authority. Its pragmatic and grammatical functions are thus twofold: cue the
listener that they should 1) understand that this is my (speaker’s) subjective take on the
matter, and 2) not necessarily base your facts on what I am saying, for it is probably
exaggerated. Speakers use it to introduce ambiguity, non-authority, and subjectivity.
Why? To suppress correction on the part of the listeners.
This is a key point, and it applies to both like1 and like2, which will be discussed
shortly: nobody wants to be corrected. Particle and quotative like allows for a wholly
personal, un-correctable statement!
More about this phenomenon, such as theories behind the spread of
unaccountability, will be discussed in Chapter III.
There are other usages of like1 other than to make a statement subjective. In a
lesser-used construction, like1 functions as an emphatic.
-The, like, movie was terrible.
The like in this sentence implies that something else was not terrible. In context, it might
look similar to:
-The, like, movie was terrible, but the rest of the date was okay.

42
This usage of like provides emphasis on movie, the same process as stressing movie
vocally. However, even though the emphatic like is used less often than the particle or the
quotative, it is still important to light upon as it provides more evidence that like1
functions grammatically.
In our scale of grammaticalization discussed above, like1 has not yet reached the
point of obligation. It is, for most young speakers, a (quite pervasive) habit. Think back
to the cat and the pole; at some point, the followers stopped thinking about why they
would tie the cat to the pole. If an older follower mentioned the reason, it might turn on a
lightbulb in some of the devotees’ heads. Oh! That’s why! The same might be expected if
a linguist would point out the why to the users of like1.
As stated, the removal of like1 from a sentence will not initiate a structural
collapse, which marks it as a less important grammatical function. It is time now, to turn
to the type of like that will initiate structural collapse if removed: the quotative.
The Power of Misquotery
A new evolution of the quotative be like allows speakers to add in touches of the
dramatic to any reported speech, thought, or action. Like2 is used to introduce a snippet of
interaction, along with the understood caveat that what is being said is probably an
exaggeration. Consider other words used to introduce direct speech: said, spoke, asked,
answered, and endless synonyms of such. All of these words are pragmatically
understood to address a mostly-accurate representation of the speech immediately before
or after. However, this new quotative knows no such bounds. Like2 allows a verbal
freedom not previously known: the freedom to put any subjective, personal, dramatic spin
on speech and have it be understood as such.

43
The above stated is the pragmatic function of like2; let us now focus on the
grammatical. The following examples are taken directly from a short, candid
conversation among 5 young women, ages 18-22. Within 20 minutes, 23 usages of like1
and 15 usages of like2 were recorded (which seem to be below average.)
a. Isn’t your mom gonna be like, ‘where did you get a car?’
b. I was like, ‘where are you gonna take me? A steakhouse?’
c. She was like, ‘there’s no such thing as an old dog!’
d. -John will be like, ‘I love you’
-And I’ll be like, ‘cool.’
As it appears, be like functions grammatically in the place of ‘said.’ Note the tenses of the
copula in these examples: we see three instances of the future (hypothetical
speech/thought) and two of the past (reported speech/thought). There is often usage of be
like in the present, especially when relating a conversation that actually happened in the
past, as a variant of the historical present. Past tense of be is often used for reporting
thoughts of the speaker at the context time, or reporting suspect thoughts of others.
Like2 is determined by what follows it. Gestures, motions, expressions, and sounds
are common in place of reported speech. The usage of this quotative invites hyperbole,
sarcasm, and exaggeration, as a touch of the dramatic. Consider, however, this curious
example from the same conversation as above, where the underlined likes are a curious
mixture between the particle and the quotative:
f. ‘I spend five minutes picking out, like, the perfect piece of fruit, and they
just, like, [motions] put it in the bag, and, like, [motions] drop it.’

44
Although the words fit into the grammar of like1, the gestures, putting fruit in a bag and
dropping the bag respectively, are more likely to be seen following the quotative like.
How can we determine which this is?
Simple. As stated above, like1 will not collapse the structure of a sentence when
removed. “The movie was, like, terrible” simply becomes “the movie was terrible.” BUT,
consider the sample sentences above without their be like:
a2) *Isn’t your mom gonna, ‘where did you get a car?’
b2) *I, ‘where are you gonna take me? A steakhouse?’
These sentences do not fit into modern English grammar. A native English speaker
hearing these sentences would know that they were strange or badly formed in some way.
The structure, the scaffolding, the envelope in which to deliver this sentence has
collapsed. The quotative like is determined by its inability to be taken from a sentence
without needing to be replaced with another word.
The word like has, over time, transformed from Old English lexical gelíc to
Modern English lexical like to Modern English grammar like. Like2 proves itself to hold
grammatical functioning, when it cannot be removed from a sentence without being
replaced with something else.
The grammatical function that the quotative like2 provides is thus: first, it
introduces a ‘quote’ (in quotes because we do not yet have a word for the type of quote
like introduces) or a mimicry. Second, it recalls the functions of like1 and functions as a
subjectivizer as well.
Like2 has, in this generation, become an obligatory expression. The next section of
this chapter focuses on what obligatory means in this context: not, for example, that all

45
speakers must use this expression all the time, but rather a more fluid concept that
encompasses the entirety of grammar.
Obligation: Who decides?
In the fable of the cat at the ashram, nobody decided that it was obligatory to tie
up a cat before meditating. What started as a useful gesture turned into habit, and habit
gradually evolved into obligation. Consider another example, a biographical example
from John McWhorter (2012): He tells of how he once had a cat toy, a little ball with a
jingle bell in it. When he went to play with his cat, he would always shake the ball so it
would jingle for the cat to hear, and then throw it. Here we see a useful gesture: shaking
the ball attracts the cat’s attention. After years of doing so, we can imagine that the
usefulness of the gesture had vanished from McWhorter’s mind, who would now shake
the ball before throwing it simply from habit. And this habit continued, until he lost the
cat toy and had to get another, similar ball; only this one did not have a jingle bell in it.
However, the habit had become obligation by this point. Even though the usefulness was
far lost, McWhorter would continue to shake this new, bell-less ball before throwing it.
He was, in a sense, obliged to do so.
In this way, we see the parallels to like. Using like is useful: it provides functions
that are otherwise nearly inaccessible to everyday speakers. This usefulness has become a
habit to many of its (ab)users; anyone who has sat in a seminar-style class with modern
college students can attest16
. And, as we have seen above, like2 at least has become
16
I am, I confess, an abuser of like myself. In informal settings, I hear it slip through my
lips before I can stop it. This habit is made all the worse by how aware of it I am. It is just
too useful to stop saying!

46
obligatory when wanting to express a ‘quote’ and wanting to let its subjectivity be known
to all.
Grammar is a form of obligation, which is why some people become so irritated
when the obligations of speakers are not followed.
Any sentence formed in standard American English-- or any language, for that
matter-- follows grammar rules. In this previous written sentence, let’s examine how.
Because [any sentence] is singular, the verb that it takes [follows] must match the
singular. Only regular verbs in the third-person singular will take an –s ending, so the
root word [follow] has that suffix. It is obligatory in Standard English to use that –s
ending when the subject is third-person singular.
That is, if a speaker wants to express X in Y way, there are obligatory rules to be
followed. This is not to say that every expression must be X in Y way; the example
sentence could have easily been rerouted to avoid that particular obligation.
- Any sentence…follows grammar rules
vs.
- All sentences...follow grammar rules.
By changing the subject in the sentence, we have changed which rules are obligatory to
follow.
Rules of grammatical obligation are subject to change, just as every aspect of
language is subject to change. Some current examples include generational disagreements
over objective pronouns as subjects (me and him went to the city), or a word that used to
be solely plural being used as a singular pronoun (someone just left the room, didn’t
they?). These phrases and new words are spoken constantly, albeit corrected, because

47
grammatical obligations change slowly. Consider back when it was unthinkable to
confuse who and whom; following the same transformation as he and him, the former is
obligatory to use as the subject, and the latter, the object. However, the [whowhom] is
just one example of an obligation that has gone by the wayside. It turns out speakers were
communicating just fine without the distinction, so the distinction faded away, in the
same pattern of language change we saw in Chapter I.
Obligation ties in nicely with society. It is generally the highest-prestige versions
of a particular language that dictate what is grammatical and what is not: the educated are
regarded (particularly by the educated) to speak the standardized, upper-class forms of a
language, and since they are the ones who are educated, those forms are what are taught.
In formal English, one does not use contractions, slang, or any constructions that are
questionable, such as the example above of them as a singular. However, a difference
emerges between formal speech, used in settings such as school, work, or professional
interactions, and casual speech used by the same speakers in more relaxed settings.
Different types of speech tend to emerge, or be used in informal situations. Some
dialects follow different obligations. Consider what linguists call African American
Vernacular English (AAVE), which is basically a dialect of English spoken by some
African-Americans in some circumstances. Just as there are variations of Standard
English, there are variations in AAVE as well. Although many of the Standard English
obligations are forgone, AAVE does have grammar obligations of its own. For example,
a third-person singular he need not take the usual –s ending on a verb:
- He don’t like carrots
- She do my pictures for me

48
This verb usage indicates a habitual tense with a different conjugation from the rules of
Standard English. There are probably no particular connections between this grammar
change and the culture that uses it, but the change is not to be simply ignored as mistakes.
AAVE has many documented rules that are as obligatory to those speaking the vernacular
as Standard English rules are to those who speak that vernacular, although it may sound
‘incorrect’. It is important to understand that there is never just one dialect of language;
some are going to be considered more ‘correct’ than others, but that will never stop
speakers from inventing new grammatical forms.
Like has become a type of grammar, although not in Standard English. The
particle and quotative are still considered slang and colloquial, but remember that many
languages changes start that way. Speakers are constantly looking for novel ways of
expression, generation after generation. For this like generation, which has either started
having children or will begin soon, it is reasonable to imagine that they will use these
non-standard usages of like in front of their children. Any child born into a language does
not have to think about whether the vernacular he or she grows up learning is the standard
one. Some children will be corrected when it comes to this slang, but others will not. And
as that ratio shifts in favor those who are not corrected anymore, after their children’s
children’s children speak the same way, a new structure becomes grammaticalized and
standardized.
Societal obligations are the next focus, and it is difficult to draw the line between
language and the culture that it reflects. In this chapter, we have looked at the process of
grammaticalization, when new structures get accepted in the vernacular, and how. The

49
next chapter will reflect on why these like structures are such an important part of
expression to many speakers.

50
Chapter III: A Reflective Dictionary
When I introduce the topic of my thesis to a previously unaware interlocutor, I
receive responses ranging from polite disinterest to fascination to shock at why I would
want to study something so seemingly pointless as like. Many youth speakers I have
spoken to consider it a topic that, even with a fair amount of depth to be explored, will
still simply result in my ascribing meaning and intention where there is none. Many
accept the place in language that like holds inarguably, some with resign and some with
resent. Older speakers, however, simply ask me “Why?!” Why do youth speakers
habitually say like? Is it just a placeholder, a filler word? My primary response is an
overarching one: no, like is not just a filler word. There is so much more to it than that.
Once I explain my findings and intuitions, particularly about the grammatical structuring
of the quotative, many are intrigued and ask if I have considered that it makes a person
sound unsure. ‘Not unsure,’ I respond, ‘but non-authoritative.’
My reason for studying this linguistic phenomenon is to show that this word, this
apparent infestation of filler words and semantic uncertainty, is actually a natural and
useful part of language.
There are parts of slang that evolve arbitrarily. The real meaning or reason behind
the expression ‘The bee’s knees,’ although it may have at one point had a denotation
distinct from the connotation generally ascribed to it, has long since faded from the
memory of speakers. Some linguistic changes develop out of an easily mis-pronounced
word, or a definition changing over time, unbeknownst by its speakers. Only the most
diehard of language defenders will continue to complain that the word ‘nauseous’ has
mutated from an adjective describing the source of nausea to describing the one afflicted

51
with it. Countless other examples, without which our modern language could not be,
could be recounted here. However, the point of this whole thesis is that like is NOT an
arbitrary language change: useful and functional, it provides those speakers who use it
with a practical and pragmatic way to communicate unspoken cultural expectations to
their conversation partners. Besides that, exploring and discussing the changing usages of
like can provide us with an insight into heretofore unexamined societal norms about the
type of content people use to communicate with each other, and why.
The first step is to show that like provides a social function, using both evidence
from native users and anecdotes about those who do not use it properly, allowing for
miscommunication. Further proof of its non-arbitrary nature will come in the form of
examples of foreign languages, in which native speakers are using their own version of
like to provide exactly the same functionality. And, in completion of this chapter (and the
forefather of my conclusion), I will discuss how these like usages in English and beyond
reflect the changing priorities of youth speakers, and the changing information cultures
that could be an explanation for it.
Culture’s Language
Because language is so inherently intertwined with culture, it is impossible to
study one without the other. Chaika (1989) describes how language can cast light upon
social stratifications, customs, group loyalties17
and, most importantly, “conditions,
values, and beliefs that have helped shaped the groups” (3). Studying language provides
17
Labov (1972) used his original ideas of linguistic quantitative research to explore a
curious sound affiliation on Martha’s Vineyard in his book Sociolinguistic Patterns: those
belonging (or aiming to belong) to the group of fisherman, rather than the more
mainlanded citizens, spoke their /ai/ and /au/ vowels more centrally. The dialectical
patterns, although seemingly unconscious, were reflected in every person living on the
island.

52
insight into how members of the culture interact with each other. In the case of like,
working as a subjectivizer or a interruption-deterrent, we have some insight into
considerations that English-speaking youth project. What does the subjectification of
statement have to offer social interaction?
It is to be understood that language changes with input from the culture in which
it resides, in addition to being able to provide information about said culture. Language
changes with new technological influences; the inventions of artificial amplification, the
radio, and telephone have changed the way people speak to each other. With every
technological advance that brings speakers, we see changes in the closeness of language
content. To discuss further the connection of physical distance and linguistic difference is
beyond the scope of this exploration; let it suffice to say that new technological advances
have influenced language in enormous ways.
In science fiction from the 1950’s on, it was considered not only futuristic but
absolutely astonishing to have a robot be able to understand a human voice and provide a
function. Consider every Star Trek episode where they address, ‘computer!’ and have a
smooth robotic voice answer back. Even more otherworldly is access to vast
encyclopedic stores of knowledge. Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy, despite being written many years before the propagation of the Internet, was
frighteningly accurate in its description of an alien device, capable of accessing any
information about any topic. “It’s sort of an electronic book,” the protagonist explains,
“that tells you everything you need to know about anything” (Adams, 1979, p. 52).
Consider, now, how interpersonal communication may have changed if that magnitude of
information was accessible at any time. The definition of ‘expert’ would change; with

53
any fact being question to any available information, people would be more careful about
which facts they purport as being true. Rules of politeness would change; who gets
corrected? Who, given their age, is allowed to get away with breaking the probable new
unspoken social laws?
In fact, since the invention of the Internet in 1982, all of these things have come to
pass. Consider a new invention by Apple: Siri. Siri stands for Speech Interpretation and
Recognition Interface, and it is used with Apple products to respond to speech commands
given by its users. Just like the Star Trek’s Computer, right? With a heretofore
unimaginable amount of information accessible with a finite tap of the finger and less
time than it takes to speak a sentence, we have, in the past two decades, discovered and
invented new social rules that govern interaction with the new abundance of fact and
information.
Every generation of speakers makes up their own social rules regarding how to
interact with one another. In a time when the educational elite had a monopoly on certain
types of information, it was considered quite rude, and against social rules, to correct,
say, a teacher or professor (even if they were wrong). Within the past twenty years,
however, youth speakers have developed and perfected a new system to avoid correction,
even if the purported information may or not be accurate: use like to subjectivize a
statement. When a statement is said in the form of an opinion, it becomes meaningless to
argue against. Which is, of course, exactly the point.
In chapter II, we discussed how like functions grammatically to provide a more
subjective statement than it would be without. Now, we turn to the social understanding
behind doing so, focusing foremost on a sociological topic referred to as ‘face.’

54
Saving Face
Face is, as Stuart Schneiderman (1995) puts, the “public presentation of self… it
concerns credit-worthiness, character, [and] industry… [s]aving face is avoiding shame,
not only for yourself, but for everyone else in your group” (10). Face is the self that we
present to the public, and while all cultures exhibit honor-keeping practices, there are as
many ways of interacting with others as cultures themselves. It is important not only to
save one’s own face, that is, to not allow for shame, guilt, or ostracism that comes with
being proven dishonorable, but also to allow your peer to save their own.
In some cultures, admitting error or failure is considered a face-saving act (FSA).
In others, however, public figures as well as the general public will go to great lengths to
avoid taking responsibility for a fault or mistake, for doing so allows for a great loss of
face. Let us consider any number of Presidents of the United States in past years:
“Mistakes were made,” “I am not a crook,” “I did not have sexual relations with that
woman,” and on and on ad infinitum ad nauseum. Each of these are examples of English
FSAs, which differ greatly from other cultures’ notions of such. The president of Japan
Air Lines, following a 1985 plane crash leaving 520 dead, personally took responsibility
for the terrible blunder, bowing to the family members of the victims, and resigning his
office soon thereafter (Schneiderman, 1995). Schneiderman notes:
In Japan, a chief executive is obliged to offer a shamefaced
apology when his company has done something wrong.
This ceremonial acceptance of responsibility applies
whether or not the executive himself acted to cause the

55
failure. Yet the Japanese distinguish between those
managers who actually made the mistakes and those who
take responsibility for their subordinates. Both resign, but
the latter are more easily reintegrated at some other post
than the former. (p. 14)
In this depiction of a face-saving act, notice that word once again: obliged! Nobody
(presumably) forced this executive to apologize, although he certainly was under the
influence of imagined social pressure; particular societies dictate societal obligations, just
as particular dialects dictate dialectical obligation (as discussed in the previous chapter).
Once again, contrast the reaction of the Japanese airline president to the actions of, say,
British Petroleum during the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; the lawyer in charge of
distributing the $20 billion clean-up and rehabilitation fund after the tragedy was found
later to be paid over $2.5 million in less than four months (Snyder & O’Leary, 2010),
insinuating some corrupted responsibility. This disaster, despite clear fault, was handled
much differently than that of the Japanese plane crash. Differing societies provide
different forms of face, face-saving or –threatening acts (FSA, FTA respectively), and
how to maintain the societal interpretation of face.
It is important in friendly or neutral interactions to both save one’s own face, and
allow their conversation partner(s) to save their own as well. Therefore, rarely will
distinctly FTA be approached; threatening the face of the group can be a FTA in and of
itself. If one conversation partner insists on producing face-threatening acts, the rest of
the group can either offer salvation for everyone (by laughing it off), allow the collective

56
group face to be diminished18
, or reverse the notion and ostracize that person threatening
the face of the group.
In youth America, being corrected has become an even more powerful face-
threatening act over time, thanks in part to the availability of information. With
information floating so freely in cyberspace, nobody should be unknowledgeable on any
topic.
Because of this new threat, we have found new ways to preempt any potential
FTAs: quite simply, do not state any facts. However, many use the same tool that
provides so much information, the Internet, for the functions it provides in anonymity.
Anonymity allows for statements, factual or not, to ring true across the lands of message
boards. Consider those who purport that Barack Obama to not be an American citizen, or
to be Muslim. Regardless of the facility of these allegations, anonymous Internet users
can find a listening ear. However, when a name is attached, notably false statements tend
to become more withheld.
The Subjective and the Fact
By making a factual statement, a speaker is putting herself at no small risk of
being corrected. Suppose the conversation partner is self-taught from the Internet, or
suppose the information has been updated and she is no longer privy to the latest. The
conversation partner, assuming a cooperative stance, is not likely to offer face-
threatening words lest they threaten their own face. However, an uncooperative partner-
18
In such cases as the military, an incredibly powerful training tool is for the higher-
status commander to lower the collective face of those he or she is training. Setting the
expectation that “I have higher value than you” leads to following orders.

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