Here’s my new piece for Eastern Daily Press, all about my frustrations with the misuse of the word ‘Like’.
“Simile like you mean it…
Before we start, yes, I am aware that this is going to make me seem like a total grump. That said, I feel I should continue. What’s my beef, I hear you cry?
It’s simple really, I seem to be surrounded by a world that’s lost any ability to communicate without the word: ‘like’.
Let me expand.
The word ‘like’ is one of comparison. It suggests that one thing is similar to, but not the same as, another. Yes, we all know that, but it’s important to state at this juncture. For some reason, however, the word ‘like’ has replaced ‘erm’ for many as an unconscious way of punctuating sentences.
As such – and my English teacher would be proud of me for this – we’re living in a world of similes.
“He was, like, so mad,” someone said to me today. A statement that means, ‘he’ was similar to being ‘so mad’, but wasn’t. I don’t think that’s what they meant.
“The soup was, like, so fishy.” Which means, if ‘so fishy’ is the maximum fishiness we can expect from a soup, that the meal in question was close to that – but not quite.
Chris McGuire, Eastern Daily Press
For the rest of the piece, click here. I hope you ‘LIKE’ it!
Chris McGuire: Writer 