> The subject [of the word ‘like’] is not uninteresting, but it is trivial. Like is a hesitation phenomenon (to give it status, the term discourse marker has be

> The subject [of the word ‘like’] is not uninteresting, but it is trivial. Like is a hesitation phenomenon (to give it status, the term discourse marker has been used about it), and the speaker, to gain time, makes pauses and fills them with like. This is so oversimplified as to border on being incorrect. Even Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like] is able to list several more uses in colloquial speech, including: • As a quotative marker, to introduce direct speech: ”I was, like, ‘who was that?’ ” • As a quotative it can also introduce ideophones: “The firework went, like, boom” • As a hedge it moderates exaggeration: “I had to wait, like, hours for the bus to arrive” • It can also indicate a counterexpectation, emphasising a contrast to what the listener might think: “There was, like, no free memory left” None of these can be dismissed as merely ‘gaining time’. I can’t deny it has that role too, but that’s far from the only meaning of like, and to say otherwise just obscures the way it’s really used.