dw:
when did we replace the word “said” with “was like”
i think it’s really interesting and cool actually that language has shifted so that ‘said’ implies that you’re quoting, while ‘was like’ means ‘i’m doing a general impression of this dude’. i mean you can’t really harsh on someone when ‘she was like aaah!’ means exactly that, doesn’t it? she was doing something very similar to the particular scream being made. so, ‘like’ indicates that you’re dealing with generalities and inexact terms, and want to convey the gist of things rather than focussing on exact phrasing and technical details—which is pretty great for young people, who are still developing cognitively and thus not always great at stringing a coherent sentence together.
and then there’s “was all”, which tends to indicate a parody or exaggeration, or an even looser impression.
she said: “I know I’ve filed these for you before, but it’s really not part of my job duties and I’m very busy today.”
she was like: “done filing your paperwork, not my department, do it yourself.”
she was all: “shyeah, no.”
i am all in favor of flexibility in language and i think this is fantastic.
linguistics & the evolving language YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH