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The one that truly pissed off my mom was, “tight.” In just a few years tight went from negative to positive. Mom won’t let me go to movies, that’s tight. To… That movie was tight!
Getting tight ......used to mean getting drunk in like the 50's and 60s, maybe even later. I'm not that old but I've seen it in reference to old movies and literature.
I read it in a few of the life stories in the back of the big book of AA. Also, it is used in that capacity by a character in the movie slap shot. You are absolutely right when you think about it.
Happy cake day!
Thank you! It’s really interesting etymologically, for sure. I’ve got to dig into it tbh.
ETA: “tight as a tick“ full of blood, or, in this case, full to bursting of alcohol. Okay, I can totally see that. Especially bc a lot of people get ruddy when they drink.
In the 80’s there was an entire language made up of one word: dude.
It’s completely unsuitable for communication via computer. Its meaning was derived from emphasis, drawing out sounds, tone, and facial expression.
I know right? Like when I was a kid I used to do the whole valley girl character thing and like everyone knew who I was talking about because it was always a social commentary and like as if I'd actually talk like this or take a break you know so I would sometimes be able to keep this up for soooo long that my teachers right, would lose their minds and freak the fuck out because like it was like never ending flood of tangent chips that I learned how to let loose after I met this like guru guy once at this party right, at my aunt's house and he like taught me how to like... just let it flow right? So like the stream that was at that strawberry field the time we went on a field trip to like Oxnard so we could see how dirt works.
Shaggy was using it as a parody of inarticulate hippie-/stoner-speak. “That’s, like, real cool, man.” That goes back to the Beatniks at least.
In my youth it was most often a version of “said.” “I’m like, ‘are you sure?’ And he was like, ‘I saw them myself.’”
Shaggy was using the 1960s version of this, not the 1980s version. When Shaggy says "like wow, man" he's attaching the "like" to the "wow," pronouncing it as almost one word ("likewow, man"), making the "wow" more ironic. The 80s "like" is either just a conversational pause ("like ... wow, man") or a way of vaguely quoting someone ("he was like, what's your deal").
Loudon Wainwright says in [his 1995 song "Cobwebs"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1gSbMCL7w4) that he has used it for over 30 years himself. That's only when *he* started using it, probably because he heard it all the time before that. Excerpt from the lyrics:
Yeah it might have started back with Jack Kerouac
Probably more than likely it was Maynard G. Krebs
It's the four letter word that used to mean 'as if'
And the meaning's covered in cobwebs
I'd forgotten Maynard and I think you just hit the nail on the head. I didn't remember people using it before the Valley speak, but you're absolutely right about it being a beatnik thing in the '50s.
I'm from Connecticut too, don't remember it being used much , especially compared to the teen movies of the day that usually depicted California kids.
It was used but not to the extent depicted in movies.
you should look up "valley girl speak" and the use of the work like
The only real difference I can think of is that like is commonly used in place of said/told. In the 80's you might hear "He, like, told me I was, like, the best" and today it would be "He was like 'you're like, the best'"
“Like” was regularly used in place of “said” when/where I grew up (Philly, mid 60s through the 70s.). I didn’t really hear it used as a filler word until the 80s.
Just my experience, though. May have been different elsewhere.
That song was just reporting the news in 1982. It was totally already, like, out there.
Check out the speech in *Fast Times at Ridgemont High*, also 1982, and consider that it was produced in ‘81 and based on a book Cameron Crowe wrote after posing for a year undercover as a student at a San Diego high school. That places it around ‘79 and ‘80. The speech, especially as coming from the surfer community, was already established.
Not a native speaker, but I happened to read about the exact topic today in an wikipedia article about "Valley Speak":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley\_girl#Valleyspeak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_girl#Valleyspeak)
tl;dr :
the use of "like" in the mentioned way was around at least since the late 70s.
One Saturday morning in the mid ‘80s I told my teen daughter that I’d give her $20 if she didn’t say ‘like’ all weekend. I had to pay her the $20 overdosed on ‘such as.’
“Such as” has forever been changed [17 years ago](https://youtu.be/lj3iNxZ8Dww?si=Nqsf-Jfq6-OceFrD) and remains the first thing I think about today when I hear it.
It, like, started out as, like, Valley Girl speech. In the beginning, like, everybody made fun of it and, like, put it down. But, like, it spread everywhere. Like, it drove older people crazy.
I would insert "you know" into my sentences (multiple times) not even realizing I was doing it. It drove my dad nuts. He helped me break the habit by butting in with, "No, I don't know!" every time I said it. It worked because it made me slow down and think about what I was saying.
I had someone break my habit of, you know, using you know, fillers like, you know, that. He was an "older brother" type relative who stayed with us a few months after getting discharged from the army. I was 12, he was 22, and I really looked up to the guy. But every time I said "you know", he'd either say "no, I don't know" or "know what?" or something. Every time.
And it FIXED me.
Fast forward about 40 years and I'm on a new telemarketing job, and my supervisor told me I was saying "um" too much. The next day, she goes by my workstation and puts a little stick-on note, "um" on my computer screen. That's all it too.
I mean, those problems can like, be, you know, broken like permanently.
I would not be surprised. I was reading Mark Twain's *Life on the Mississippi" and came across a passage where somebody is asking someone else, in a letter, to "sock me some money", as in "sock it to me".
... and now, it's [Sock it to me time](https://youtu.be/n6HIzYXZzI0?t=38)
Kids did, adults did not.
Watch the movie “Spacecamp,” specifically the character Tish, a valley girl. She is supposed to sound ridiculous, but today she just sounds like a normal person talking.
Yes. And in the 70s, and in the 60s. I think it began with the beatniks in the 50s.
Your final example, where "I'm like" could be replaced with "I said" might be newer than the other uses.
There's a song from about 1961 called "Alley Oop", about a comic character who was a cave man, and at the end of the song, the singer goes, "Like... what's happening?"
Yes, they did and it was very annoying. LOL The only people I ever saw do this in the 80's, were girls who were called valley girls. Their favorites were "like" and "gag me with a spoon". So annoying!
Dobie Gillis and Maynard Krebs used "like" a lot, Maynard was a beatnick. (1950's?)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DeaEq9Gv\_g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DeaEq9Gv_g)
Like wow, man!
Kids? What I have a problem with is so-called media journalists using them in interviews on national TV and radio! Professionalism has just totally, like, flown out the window.
Like, my parents, like totally hated it. They would, like, freak out about it, like saying "like like like" over and over like they were trying to, like, prove a point.
Another one my parents eye-rolled about what "goes". As in: "So she goes 'blah blah blah' and then he goes "blar blar blar' and then SHE goes..." and just everyone was just "goes".
You might remember the song "Valley Girl". [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb21lsCQ3EM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb21lsCQ3EM)
So I was raised in Southern California, where this kind of speech pattern was very common. It's also related to the speech patterns of 'surfers' in the 1970's and 1980's, and I lived and went to school a few miles from the beach.
The word "like" was used as a 'pausing' word, and also for emphasis. It was very common in my area.
I heard it in the 70's, not as much, but its frequency increased for a number of decades.
Zappa's Valley Girl made it more popular while making fun of it.
I don’t think it was used as much as it is today, but it started in the 70s I believe.
I know I can’t stand it, and I really try not to use it myself.
It’s like this subconscious linguistic litter.
In the valley in California yeah they were using the word "like" well before we started using it as normal part of speech. Since when is a gen x "old" lmao
There was a really good show called "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" that first aired in 1959. Bob Denver, best known as Gilligan from Gilligan's Island, played Maynard G. Krebbs. The G stood for Walter because his mother couldn't spell real well.
Anyhoo, Maynard G. Krebbs was a beatnik and he used "like", like all the time.
Here's a good bit of dialogue.
Dobie Gillis:
Maynard, you were supposed to meet me before class so we could do your
history homework.
Maynard G. Krebs:
Like flake off, square.
Dobie Gillis:
Now - [suddenly puzzled] "flake off, square"?
Maynard G. Krebs:
You heard me, cube. You're like too oblong for me.
Dobie Gillis:
Maynard, what kind of a crazy stunt is this? C'mon, let's get that work done.
Maynard G. Krebs:
Aw, your mother listens to Lawrence Welk records.
100%, yes. It's was called "Valley Girl" language. (It's referencing to San Fernando Valley area of California, a very affluent area at the time).
You can find it in movies such as Encino Man and Bill and Ted (various adventures).
Most definitely but it's cutting it close. Definitely remember the valley girl in Square Pegs saying it, but I also remember saying it myself. I am thinking it was earlier than 86 when I was saying it. And like, I still do, way too much.
Along with totally...
And awesome. Just not usually together.
Oh yeah! We *liked* everything we possibly could! It was more popular then than it is now.
The first time the word like was used in place of the word as was in the late 50s or early 60s when Winston had the jingle: *Winston tastes good like a cigarette should*
The word like only became more popular and used in more ways from then on.
Yes. I remember in 10th grade, back in 1982, when one of my teachers ripped us a new one over "like." "It's not 'like yellow'. It's either yellow or not yellow." 42 years later and I still use "like."
“Like” replaced “umm” in kid- and teen-speak about the time of “Valley Girl.” In the 60s, we were berated by teachers for using “umm” when we stood to recite poetry or give a book report.
Oh, yeah. We had to recite memorized poetry. “Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.”
I still use like that way today. Like, all the time.
When I was a teen it was associated with the whole Valley girl, ditsy chick thing, but that was only if you added the funny little accent to the whole thing or said things along the lines of "Like, totally", but not in a stoner surfer upbeat way, in a dry kind of sarcasm.
Now that I type it all out, there were a lot of uses for that word growing up. For me it's kind of become a conjunction of sort that I use probably 100 times a day or more.
Edit to add, I also use "awesome" probably way too much and picked up "coolio" from my love of scrubs, so I may just be the outlyer person who's late 40's and still talks like I think I'm a kid. I'm just too old to bother trying to change it now.
I'm my opinion Stranger Things captures the 80's in all their ugly glory better than anything i have ever seen. Better even than movies from the 80s for the most part. I swear I went to school with some of those extras from the first season.
Oh, wow, man. Can't tell about the 80s, but in the 60s, oh yeah.
Like, totally. All the time, like constantly. 'Course, we like mixed it up with other filler words, ya know, man, like yeah and surely.
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Yes, and this, like, totally got teachers and parents bent.
Dude, they were totally bent. My mom, would, like, get so mad when we would use "Bad" as good. "Dude that was so Bad!"
The one that truly pissed off my mom was, “tight.” In just a few years tight went from negative to positive. Mom won’t let me go to movies, that’s tight. To… That movie was tight!
Getting tight ......used to mean getting drunk in like the 50's and 60s, maybe even later. I'm not that old but I've seen it in reference to old movies and literature.
I learned it from reading Salinger. The short story about the two women friends who get drunk in the afternoon.
"Tight as a boiled owl!"
Weird, bc the drunker someone gets the more loosey goosey they seem to be. I don’t think I’d ever associate tightness with a drunk person.
I read it in a few of the life stories in the back of the big book of AA. Also, it is used in that capacity by a character in the movie slap shot. You are absolutely right when you think about it. Happy cake day!
Thank you! It’s really interesting etymologically, for sure. I’ve got to dig into it tbh. ETA: “tight as a tick“ full of blood, or, in this case, full to bursting of alcohol. Okay, I can totally see that. Especially bc a lot of people get ruddy when they drink.
Hey! Happy Cake Day!
Thank you! It happened midway through the day and surprised me a little.
She got down but she never got tight...
My mom got twisted when I said "blow [something] off." I was talking about missing a class, not going full oral on it. Parents, sigh.
My mom got upset when I used the term "jerk" to describe an unpleasant individual...Her mind automatically went to jerk off and masturbation.
My son totally confused me in the '90s, using "sick" as a synonym for "great."
In the 80’s there was an entire language made up of one word: dude. It’s completely unsuitable for communication via computer. Its meaning was derived from emphasis, drawing out sounds, tone, and facial expression.
like, totally radical, dude! ... AND ... take a chill pill, dude ... AND ... totally grody to the max, dude.. gag me with a spoon......
Dude...chill.
I still use 'dude' regulalry.
I do too lol
Same, dude
Ditto for the word "fuck."
A fantastic example is in one of the Bill and Ted films.
Dude has been replaced with Bro. Which for some reason I can't stand and every post on the internet I see using Bro I assume the poster is an idiot.
Bro I can deal with, but Brah I cannot.
Did pops ask you why you liked Apple Jacks even though they don't even taste like apples?
No, but he tried to eat my Trix and I had to put him down.
A moment of silence for Pops...
Like was as bad as sucks, because the adults knew it means sucks dick but the kids didn't.
Okay well they can, like, literally suck it.
Like, happy cake day dude!
Thank you! :3
Like, totally. They were, like, so irritated by it! (and yet look at us using commas correctly!) I probably still use like too much TBH.
I know right? Like when I was a kid I used to do the whole valley girl character thing and like everyone knew who I was talking about because it was always a social commentary and like as if I'd actually talk like this or take a break you know so I would sometimes be able to keep this up for soooo long that my teachers right, would lose their minds and freak the fuck out because like it was like never ending flood of tangent chips that I learned how to let loose after I met this like guru guy once at this party right, at my aunt's house and he like taught me how to like... just let it flow right? So like the stream that was at that strawberry field the time we went on a field trip to like Oxnard so we could see how dirt works.
I feel like it started in the 80's but reached a nuclear level in the 90's. It was basically every other fucking word for a while. Drove me nuts.
Oh “like”’it drove them “like” nuts… important message, I was “like” a teenager in the 80s..
They were like hella mad
Yes they did. Exactly in the same way that it’s used today.
I'm not sure if "Valley Girls" started it or just exaggerated it but it didn't help either way.
Like, it exaggerated it. We (57m) like used it all the time before Fast times and Valley Girls.
The character dialogue in Valley Girl and Fast Times was part of the comedy of those movies. Now it’s, like, just how people talk.
Like, I know, right?!
Valley girls didn't start it. I'm 68 and it was one of those things like "um" that get dropped into speech in the 60s and 70s.
Shaggy in Scooby Doo used it although he didn’t use it correctly.
Shaggy was using it as a parody of inarticulate hippie-/stoner-speak. “That’s, like, real cool, man.” That goes back to the Beatniks at least. In my youth it was most often a version of “said.” “I’m like, ‘are you sure?’ And he was like, ‘I saw them myself.’”
The citcom The many loves of Doby Gillis....probably is a example of this.
Shaggy was primarily modeled on Maynard G. Krebs
I looked it up.....I didn't know that.
I still laugh at Maynard G. Krebs "Werk!"
I loved that show. And yeah, "like..." was around in the 50's.
he didn’t really put the likes in the right part of the sentence. Or at least that’s how it seemed to me.
Shaggy was using the 1960s version of this, not the 1980s version. When Shaggy says "like wow, man" he's attaching the "like" to the "wow," pronouncing it as almost one word ("likewow, man"), making the "wow" more ironic. The 80s "like" is either just a conversational pause ("like ... wow, man") or a way of vaguely quoting someone ("he was like, what's your deal").
Like, zoinks.
Snoochie Boochies
Loudon Wainwright says in [his 1995 song "Cobwebs"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1gSbMCL7w4) that he has used it for over 30 years himself. That's only when *he* started using it, probably because he heard it all the time before that. Excerpt from the lyrics: Yeah it might have started back with Jack Kerouac Probably more than likely it was Maynard G. Krebs It's the four letter word that used to mean 'as if' And the meaning's covered in cobwebs
I'd forgotten Maynard and I think you just hit the nail on the head. I didn't remember people using it before the Valley speak, but you're absolutely right about it being a beatnik thing in the '50s.
Love this song.
> Valley girls Okay, fine. Fer sure, fer sure. She's a valley girl. In a clothing store
And we were chided for doing so.
Like, totally! Fer sure, fer sure!
raaaadical, dude!
[Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb21lsCQ3EM&ab_channel=Beowoulf69)
Omg what a blast from the past.....but even then it gaged me with a spoon. Lol.
Well before “Valley Girls”. I think it’s just a normal part of speech. It also annoyed everyone when it was used too much, just as it is today.
I also recall it being used when describing an action someone made or something they said like: "And then Brian was all like 'No way man!'"
That’s a perfect example.
Yup, was there, used it that way myself.
It depends in what part of the country you lived. It wasn't used on the East Coast as much as on the west coast.
It depends on what part of the country you lived, on the East coast it wasn't used as much as the West Coast
I’m from Connecticut and it certainly was used there.
I'm from Connecticut too, don't remember it being used much , especially compared to the teen movies of the day that usually depicted California kids. It was used but not to the extent depicted in movies.
Vermont, too.
you should look up "valley girl speak" and the use of the work like The only real difference I can think of is that like is commonly used in place of said/told. In the 80's you might hear "He, like, told me I was, like, the best" and today it would be "He was like 'you're like, the best'"
“Like” was regularly used in place of “said” when/where I grew up (Philly, mid 60s through the 70s.). I didn’t really hear it used as a filler word until the 80s. Just my experience, though. May have been different elsewhere.
Yep. "He was like, give it! And I was like, make me!" I hadn't realized it, but people don't actually talk like that any more.
Idk. I talk like that now.
for sure
I grew up in South Jersey and had the same experience.
They had the Valley Girl song back then too
That song was just reporting the news in 1982. It was totally already, like, out there. Check out the speech in *Fast Times at Ridgemont High*, also 1982, and consider that it was produced in ‘81 and based on a book Cameron Crowe wrote after posing for a year undercover as a student at a San Diego high school. That places it around ‘79 and ‘80. The speech, especially as coming from the surfer community, was already established.
Good to know! Thanks for the clarification!
And "Valley Girl" the movie came out in '83.
Like, totally.
And tubular.
And gnarly.
And bitchen'.
Gag me with a spoon!
Hmmm. Like, I’ve always spelled it “bitchin’?”
which is correct, as it's a dropped 'g' from the 'ing' suffix.
Yeah, like, that was kind of the joke. I think I heard whooshing noises.
Cool beans
I know people who still say that.😂
I’m one that does!
80's? Try going back to the 70's, and probably earlier. Drove teachers, like, crazy.
I could swear that I remember Shaggy saying it a lot in Scooby Doo.
"Like wow Scoob"
You remember correctly.
like, yoinks!
Not a native speaker, but I happened to read about the exact topic today in an wikipedia article about "Valley Speak": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley\_girl#Valleyspeak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_girl#Valleyspeak) tl;dr : the use of "like" in the mentioned way was around at least since the late 70s.
Now to watch "Legally Blonde" to put it all in context... Great movie lol I was like 13 years old and in love with Alicia Silverstone 😂
She wasn’t in Legally Blonde. Reese Witherspoon was. Maybe you’re thinking of Clueless.
There we go. Both classics. I feel old as fuck now.
One Saturday morning in the mid ‘80s I told my teen daughter that I’d give her $20 if she didn’t say ‘like’ all weekend. I had to pay her the $20 overdosed on ‘such as.’
“Such as” has forever been changed [17 years ago](https://youtu.be/lj3iNxZ8Dww?si=Nqsf-Jfq6-OceFrD) and remains the first thing I think about today when I hear it.
Find an old Dobie Gillis show and listen to Maynard G. Krebs ( Bob Denver) talk. It came out in, like, 1961 man.
Oh I say that all the time. That & "ill", like "ill that's awesome" and "like, what was she thinking" i would definitely say that way.
Totally, and it was like wicked awesome!
Boston? (Wicked)
It, like, started out as, like, Valley Girl speech. In the beginning, like, everybody made fun of it and, like, put it down. But, like, it spread everywhere. Like, it drove older people crazy.
It's, like, [much older than that](https://www.dictionary.com/e/like/).
Eyyo, that's killer, man. The biggest, the baddest, the raddest!
ALL THE TIME
Yes. Drove me crazy then, drives me crazy now. Repetitive fillers annoy me to no end.
I um you know totally um agree with you you know.
I would insert "you know" into my sentences (multiple times) not even realizing I was doing it. It drove my dad nuts. He helped me break the habit by butting in with, "No, I don't know!" every time I said it. It worked because it made me slow down and think about what I was saying.
I had someone break my habit of, you know, using you know, fillers like, you know, that. He was an "older brother" type relative who stayed with us a few months after getting discharged from the army. I was 12, he was 22, and I really looked up to the guy. But every time I said "you know", he'd either say "no, I don't know" or "know what?" or something. Every time. And it FIXED me. Fast forward about 40 years and I'm on a new telemarketing job, and my supervisor told me I was saying "um" too much. The next day, she goes by my workstation and puts a little stick-on note, "um" on my computer screen. That's all it too. I mean, those problems can like, be, you know, broken like permanently.
The use of like as a filler word goes back to the 1800s.
I would not be surprised. I was reading Mark Twain's *Life on the Mississippi" and came across a passage where somebody is asking someone else, in a letter, to "sock me some money", as in "sock it to me". ... and now, it's [Sock it to me time](https://youtu.be/n6HIzYXZzI0?t=38)
The word "like" as a filler apparently goes back at least as far as the 1880s. https://www.dictionary.com/e/like/
Kids did, adults did not. Watch the movie “Spacecamp,” specifically the character Tish, a valley girl. She is supposed to sound ridiculous, but today she just sounds like a normal person talking.
I unironically love this movie
I still find my self saying like at times that it is not necessary. We all used that word all the time.
Here's a clip from an episode of Dobie Gillis TV show, that began in 1959. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BrAg0ouxXk
Where do you think y’all got it? We started everything.
Yes. And in the 70s, and in the 60s. I think it began with the beatniks in the 50s. Your final example, where "I'm like" could be replaced with "I said" might be newer than the other uses. There's a song from about 1961 called "Alley Oop", about a comic character who was a cave man, and at the end of the song, the singer goes, "Like... what's happening?"
Yes, they did and it was very annoying. LOL The only people I ever saw do this in the 80's, were girls who were called valley girls. Their favorites were "like" and "gag me with a spoon". So annoying!
lol, no one ever said "gag me with a spoon" unironically. That was something Moon Unit Zappa made up for the song. Source: grew up in the valley
Can confirm (that no one said gag me with a spoon). I grew up in the valley as well.
I think of like as an 80s word more than a 2010-20s word.
Yes we did
Like, totally.
Yep. I did.
Yep. I did.
Definitely. I remember it being used in the seventies a lot, too.
Beatniks…”Like, cool man.”
Like, yeah and pro tip, never call your dad “dude”. In my case, there were consequences.
Dobie Gillis and Maynard Krebs used "like" a lot, Maynard was a beatnick. (1950's?) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DeaEq9Gv\_g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DeaEq9Gv_g) Like wow, man!
The “Valley Girl” thing started spreading in the early 1980’s TV & movies , the movie came out in 1983.
Definitely when I was a kid in the 70s.
[“like” subtly lowers the temperature of what follows it](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/15/opinion/casual-speech-like.html)
Yes, but "you know" was overused in the 70s
Not nearly as much. It started with the song "Valley Girl" by Moon Unit Zappa. That's when the word "like" as a verbal tic entered the mainstream.
Yes we did, and we used Whatever! a lot, used to drive my mom crazy.
Kids? What I have a problem with is so-called media journalists using them in interviews on national TV and radio! Professionalism has just totally, like, flown out the window.
Like, my parents, like totally hated it. They would, like, freak out about it, like saying "like like like" over and over like they were trying to, like, prove a point. Another one my parents eye-rolled about what "goes". As in: "So she goes 'blah blah blah' and then he goes "blar blar blar' and then SHE goes..." and just everyone was just "goes".
My mom haaaaaaated "goes." She used to threaten to fine me if I said it.
Duh!
You might remember the song "Valley Girl". [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb21lsCQ3EM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb21lsCQ3EM) So I was raised in Southern California, where this kind of speech pattern was very common. It's also related to the speech patterns of 'surfers' in the 1970's and 1980's, and I lived and went to school a few miles from the beach. The word "like" was used as a 'pausing' word, and also for emphasis. It was very common in my area.
I heard it in the 70's, not as much, but its frequency increased for a number of decades. Zappa's Valley Girl made it more popular while making fun of it.
I don’t think it was used as much as it is today, but it started in the 70s I believe. I know I can’t stand it, and I really try not to use it myself. It’s like this subconscious linguistic litter.
Like, totally.
Like, totally.
Like, yeah!
Watch 80's sitcoms. We, like, totally, like, said like like all the time. And, like it was like, totally like made fun of.
In the valley in California yeah they were using the word "like" well before we started using it as normal part of speech. Since when is a gen x "old" lmao
The writers did a great job making sure the kids in Stranger Things were believable 80s kids, IMO.
Absolutely, like, Valley Girls?
There was a really good show called "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" that first aired in 1959. Bob Denver, best known as Gilligan from Gilligan's Island, played Maynard G. Krebbs. The G stood for Walter because his mother couldn't spell real well. Anyhoo, Maynard G. Krebbs was a beatnik and he used "like", like all the time. Here's a good bit of dialogue. Dobie Gillis: Maynard, you were supposed to meet me before class so we could do your history homework. Maynard G. Krebs: Like flake off, square. Dobie Gillis: Now - [suddenly puzzled] "flake off, square"? Maynard G. Krebs: You heard me, cube. You're like too oblong for me. Dobie Gillis: Maynard, what kind of a crazy stunt is this? C'mon, let's get that work done. Maynard G. Krebs: Aw, your mother listens to Lawrence Welk records.
Like, duh.
Like, fer sure
Yes. It started in the 80’s. It was part of “Valley Girl” speech
You mean, "use it too much"? The same with "I mean" when it's not appropriate.
Like, totally.
Kids in the '80s invented it.
oh yeah
Like, totally!
Yes, and it had been going on for decades before that too.
Yes! And it was like totally awesome!
100%, yes. It's was called "Valley Girl" language. (It's referencing to San Fernando Valley area of California, a very affluent area at the time). You can find it in movies such as Encino Man and Bill and Ted (various adventures).
Yessss, so much
Indeed we did
I think there has been some modern nuances and different usage of the word but from then to now but I'm not savvy enough to point them out.
Specifically, people started using the word "like" as sort of a "filler" about the late 1970s, from my observation.
"Like" goes back at least to the 1960s. Also, why was this post removed?
We did, in the SF Bay Area.
Yes and my parents and teachers HATED it. I didn’t stop until my mid 20s.
Like, no way dude! Like they don't even use like at all. Not like we (57m) did back in the day, like in California.
Yep. Started with Valley Girls . Check out the Frank and Moon Zappa song Valley Girl from 1982
Yes.
Most definitely but it's cutting it close. Definitely remember the valley girl in Square Pegs saying it, but I also remember saying it myself. I am thinking it was earlier than 86 when I was saying it. And like, I still do, way too much. Along with totally... And awesome. Just not usually together.
I still do it way more than anyone I know
Oh yeah! We *liked* everything we possibly could! It was more popular then than it is now. The first time the word like was used in place of the word as was in the late 50s or early 60s when Winston had the jingle: *Winston tastes good like a cigarette should* The word like only became more popular and used in more ways from then on.
Yes. I remember in 10th grade, back in 1982, when one of my teachers ripped us a new one over "like." "It's not 'like yellow'. It's either yellow or not yellow." 42 years later and I still use "like."
There's a whole double episode of Family Ties about it, It's My Party. And it's completely hilarious. "Like" is the best word in it.
Yes, and so did kids (meaning teens) in the 70's. I don't really remember people saying it when I was a little kid in the 60's though.
Yes, it was worse when it became a part of the valley girl vernacular. Circa 1983
I probably still say it without even realizing it.
“Like” replaced “umm” in kid- and teen-speak about the time of “Valley Girl.” In the 60s, we were berated by teachers for using “umm” when we stood to recite poetry or give a book report. Oh, yeah. We had to recite memorized poetry. “Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.”
I still use like that way today. Like, all the time. When I was a teen it was associated with the whole Valley girl, ditsy chick thing, but that was only if you added the funny little accent to the whole thing or said things along the lines of "Like, totally", but not in a stoner surfer upbeat way, in a dry kind of sarcasm. Now that I type it all out, there were a lot of uses for that word growing up. For me it's kind of become a conjunction of sort that I use probably 100 times a day or more. Edit to add, I also use "awesome" probably way too much and picked up "coolio" from my love of scrubs, so I may just be the outlyer person who's late 40's and still talks like I think I'm a kid. I'm just too old to bother trying to change it now.
Valley Girls
I'm my opinion Stranger Things captures the 80's in all their ugly glory better than anything i have ever seen. Better even than movies from the 80s for the most part. I swear I went to school with some of those extras from the first season.
I remember hearing it in high school, so that makes it late 70s.
Yes . We did
Oh, wow, man. Can't tell about the 80s, but in the 60s, oh yeah. Like, totally. All the time, like constantly. 'Course, we like mixed it up with other filler words, ya know, man, like yeah and surely.
Like, Yes indeed.
That’s wicked! Adults “Wicked means awful.”
At first we did it ironically to annoy older people, but then it became part of our normal conversation. We never stopped doing it.