The Philosophy of Like

 

People complain about the overuse of "like" in contemporary culture.  They say it's just a "filler word" that has no meaning, like "um".  (I'm not even sure that I agree about "um," but that's another story.)

When people use "like" in its modern, slangy sense, what people are expressing is the inadequacy of language to give a comprehensive account of a given reality.  Consider the difference between a simile and a metaphor:

Sentence 1) Simile: You're like a dog.

Sentence 2) Metaphor: You're a dog.

In a sense, these sentences seem to mean the same thing.  In neither case is the speaker asserting that the addressee literally belongs to the species canis lupus familiaris.  In both cases, it would totally miss the point to respond by demanding DNA evidence.  These sentences are not the assertion of a scientific fact that could be proven true or false, nor is there any expectation that they could be on either the speaker or listener's part (perhaps Harry Frankfurt would say that they are "bullshit").  Both the first sentence and the second sentence are expressions of a certain subjective impression on the part of the speaker, and also an expression of a kind of creativity, in which the speaker is using the image of a dog as a kind of symbol, used to bring out and make salient certain attributes as points of comparison between this person and a dog.  The speaker expects the level of linguistic fluency and cultural competence necessary on the part of the addressee to understand that, although the sentence takes the grammatical form of a factual statement, it is not intended as one.

So do these two sentences have exactly the same meaning?  If not, what's the difference?  The second sentence, the metaphor, seems to absolutize the relation between the addressee and the symbol of the dog.  He is a dog.   It's not just a relation between two different things that are alike - they are one.  It's a stronger assertion - it implies that the symbol of the dog does not just remind someone of this person - it is completely comprehensive, down to the last detail.  Metaphor "seems more poetic" than simile: If Emily Dickinson had said that "hope is like a thing with feathers," that would seem less powerful than "'Hope' is the thing with feathers."  I'm reminded of Catherine's line from Wuthering Heights: "I am Heathcliff."

One might therefore suspect that metaphor is the more recent innovation - that simile is "the way normal people talk" - and the way they always have talked - whereas it takes the creativity of a poet to come up with a metaphor.  

In fact, the reverse is probably true.  Consider the bonobo.  Sue Savage-Rumbaugh's research team at the Iowa Primate Learning Sanctuary in Des Moines (now the Ape Initiative) observed bonobos such as the famous Kanzi, who communicated through lexigrams, spontaneously recombining these concepts in creative ways to convey new ideas - like "Trash lettuce," which was Kanzi's term for brussels sprouts.  Humans are even more creative at coming up with new combinations of words to express new ideas. 

A bonobo is very capable of utilizing the concepts of "trash" and "vegetable," using them creatively and masterfully, rearranging them with astonishing dexterity and brilliance.  But being able to conceptualize "like" is another matter.  You can train a bonobo to use a button to symbolize "trash" and "vegetable": just point to, or hold up, or give them trash, or vegetables, every time they push the button.  But how do you communicate the concept of "like"?  What do you point to?  Understanding the strange notion of "likeness" - likeness itself - is quite a feat of abstraction and conceptualization - it is, confusingly, universal and very specific.  Whoever came up with "like," whether they were human or some pre-human primate ancestor, the concept of "like" is a work of genius.  Perhaps it was a collective project that took many generations to achieve.

The behavior of bonobos and other animals leads me to conclude that metaphors came first, probably around the time of the invention of language.  Similes came later, and constituted a substantial kind of progress in the development of abstract thought.  It's not so much that metaphor absolutizes the relation between two concepts.  It's that simile relativizes the equation of two concepts.  With "like," we gain a kind of distance - the distance that is necessary for us to be capable of critical thought.  Suddenly born within us is a new space, an interior space between concepts.  They are no longer locked, no longer fused together.  They develop a new flexibility and growth.

Now consider the sentence:

Sentence 3) Like, you're a dog.

Rather than relativizing the relation between "you" and "dog", this usage of the word "like" relativizes the entire sentence.  It could be looked at as a shortened way of saying, "It is like you are a dog."  Sometimes people will even phrase a sentence this way: "It's like, I've been standing here for ages."

Sentence 4) Like, I'm right here!  Hello?

This seems a bit odd, because there's no comparison, or trope being used at all.  It's not a simile, in any obvious way.  So what's going on?

Now consider this:

Sentence 5) Like, what's your problem?

In this case, there is no statement, only a question - so, it would seem, there is nothing to relativize.  How is "like" being used here? Is it truly only a "filler" word, without any meaning whatsoever?  Not so fast.  Now let's examine these:

Sentences 6 and 7) She's like, come over here!  And I'm like, no way.

Sentences (6) and (7), in my opinion, give us an important clue to understanding the meaning of sentences (4) and (5).  Clearly, the person who utters sentences (6) and (7) means something like "She said, 'Come over here.' And I said, 'No way.'"  But that's not exactly what he means.  It's only like that.  That may not have been, word for word, what the people involved said.  But that was the gist of the communication that was conveyed.  Indeed, they may not have said anything.  They may have conveyed these messages through eye movements, facial expressions, posture, gestures, or of course some other word or phrase.  In short, the person who says sentences (6) and (7) is doing a kind of impression of the interlocutors in the earlier conversation - he is conveying his impression of the conversation.  But this impression is not one that is performed for verisimilitude.  The speaker is only expressing the meaningful essence of the exchange, not its accidental details.  This is something less than, or at least something other than, a factual account.

Notice that, in the case of sentence (7), the speaker is actually relaying an impression of himself.

Now apply this to sentences (4) and (5).  (4) could mean something like "I'm like, I'm right here!  Hello?"  That is to say, the person who says (4) could be performing an impression of herself.  We can imagine this dialogue in at least a couple different scenarios.  Perhaps the speaker is describing a previous experience, in which she felt she was being ignored or unrecognized in some way.  Perhaps two other people were talking about her, acting as if she weren't there.  Perhaps they were having a conversation about a topic that applied directly to her, but she wasn't being consulted for her opinion.  Maybe she's reporting what she said - or, more likely, she is expressing what she felt, and did not say.  But there's another possibility.  Perhaps this is not a past-tense narrative, but an expression of an impression of an interaction that is happening here and now.  The "like" in this context softens the expression and puts some inner distance into the expression - ironic in this instance, since what is being expressed is precisely the fact that the speaker is present and demands to be recognized.

Doing a self-impression always implies a certain amount of something like humor - or, better put, irony - a certain ironic distance, a caveat that tells the listener not to take the statement too literally.  Is this an attempt to evade the responsibility of making a definitive statement?

We can examine this question more direction in sentence (5).  If we render the sentence as "I'm like, what's your problem?" the self-impression implied here is a way of softening the confrontation with just the slightest touch of irony.  This is not to say that the speaker is not confronting her addressee, or that she does not mean what she says.  She is not cowering in fear.  On the contrary, this slight irony, this minimal distance, this tiny space of performativity helps to give her the courage she needs to go on the attack.  Who says that for a battle to be effectively waged, it must be authentic?

Sentence 8) Is this, like, the best you could do?

Now we are really in the thick of things.  "Like" can go anywhere in a sentence.  Sometimes it cannot be rendered into a sentence of a more old-fashioned grammar: "Are you, like, going to the party tonight?"  We can't do our trick here of changing it to "I'm like," unless we move the word order around and put the "like" at the beginning of the sentence.  Even so, I would argue that "like" is still offering some irony and some relativism, softening the question and giving the listener some time to prepare for it.  But sentence (8) is truly at another level of irony, because it is a grammatical sentence, but one that means something different from what it literally says.  The speaker here is not saying, "Is this similar to the best you could do?"  They are asking, "Is this the best you could do?"  Can I really maintain that "like" has meaning, even in an utterance like this?  Yes, I can.  I think it's quite similar to the situation of sentence (5).  A touch of irony leavens the confrontation.

In all of these cases, "like" acts as a caveat and a conveyor of irony.  It expresses the inadequacy of expression.