Re: USAGE: 'like' as a referent to quoting

James Worlton wrote:
> Some of you may be interested in the topic at the University of North
> Texas' Linguistics Colloquium (which I unfortunately can't attend). I
> don't think the usage is as frequent in US english, but it certainly
> exists--and I find myself (age 33) doing it sometimes as well *gasp*:
>
And I'm like, eeuw, gag me with a spoon. (already passé, no?)

We must take comfort in the fact that the vast majority of teen/college
slang does not survive those years. We must hope that continues to be the
case. I'm sure my parents were as hip as Midwesterner could be in the 20s,
but I never heard them say "bee's knee's, 23-skidoo, vo-do-dee-o-do" or any
other leftover from that era; I barely remember any of the slang I
undoubtedly used in the 50s; nothing is groovy anymore; disco is a
cringe-making curiosity, and so on. All these things seem eventually to find
their way into the Dustbin of Kulchur. Gratias Deo!!

We were given examples of similar locutions in German, Dutch and Russian.
When did they begin to be noticed? I doubt it's an independent development,
and must surely be one more US export we can take perverse pride in. I
wonder if there's a way to say "he's like..." in Esperanto yet?

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