Sunday, February 19, 2012

Quotative Like, Go, and All

They are used as markers to introduce quotes.

For example, like can introduce an actual quotation (“She’s like, ‘What unusual shoes you’re wearing!’ ”) or paraphrase one (“She’s like, my shoes are weird!”).
Or it can summarize the inner thoughts of either the quoter or the quotee (“She’s like, yeah, as if I’d be caught dead in them! And I’m like, I care what you think?”).

Linguists call it the “quotative like.”

Like even lets a speaker imitate the behavior of the person being quoted (“She’s like... ” and the speaker smirks and rolls her eyes).

The other quoting words commonly used in speech are go (“He goes, ‘Give me your wallet’ ”) and all (“I’m all, ‘Sure, dude, it’s  yours’ ”). But like definitely has legs. In just a generation or so it has spread throughout much of the English-speaking world.

Source

Hear examples of “quotative go” in this hilarious video: Everything amazing, nobody's happy.

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