Like Is, Like, a Comma

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

This is like when a character, like, constantly throws the word "like" into their sentences. Frequently used by like, teenage girl characters who are, like, um, a little dim? And, like, end every sentence with, like, an upwards inflection? Usage doesn't seem to be limited to, like, specific character types, although it does seem to be used more by girls than, like, boys. Can get into, like, Totally Radical territory if, like, this character trait is used, like, randomly out of place.

Right, that's enough of that...hopefully you can see how unclear and annoying that can make dialogue! This trope definitely needs to be used sparingly, unless you really want to make a character The Scrappy.

The word "like" can be used in many ways;

  • Adverbs, when it means 'nearly' - "I, like, died".
  • Quotatives, when you wish to quote another character - "she was like, 'Like is totally a quotative!'"
  • It can also be a 'hedge'. This is when you want to show you don't quite mean what you're saying literally - which is of course how similes work. "She's only, like, five miles away".
  • You can also use like as an interjection. If you don't wanna use "um...", for instance.

Another place like turns up is in Welsh speech. Leet Lingo frequently uses "liek" as a deliberate typo.

Dave Barry once pointed out that one of the reasons young people may talk like this could be to make sure the person they're talking to is paying attention to them.

This is Truth in Television, as many parents will gripe about this trope - although they'll use it in Totally Radical ways that don't match any actual teenagers' speech. Also a prominent trait of the Valley Girl.

It's also Older Than They Think: screenwriter I. A. L. Diamond (who was born in 1920) and director Billy Wilder (born in 1906) had Marilyn Monroe use the expression in the 'hedge' sense above in their 1959 period comedy, Some Like It Hot.

Compare Verbal Tic.

Examples of Like Is, Like, a Comma include:

Like, Anime and Manga

  • Poland from Axis Powers Hetalia is shown to do this in Fanon, due to the fan-translations of his Nagoya Schoolgirl dialect into a Valley Girl accent. Coincidentally, this, like, totally fits with his canon personality.

Like, Comic Books

  • This is how the legionary who's, like, disguised as a rattle-seller talks in the, y'know, English translation of Asterix and Son.

Like, Literature

  • This is a common feature of Nadsat speak in A Clockwork Orange, though its usage isn't exactly the same as it would be in normal teen speech.
  • Dave Barry has like a column where he like explains that teenagers talk like this to like check that they still have the full attention of like whoever they're like talking to.

Like, Live-Action TV

Like, Newspaper Comics

Like, Video Games

Like, Web Comics

Like, Web Original

Like, Western Animation

Like, Real Life

  • Geordies, like. Amusingly, that's about all Southerners can often translate from Geordie.
  • Most American teenagers, black or white, male or female. Like: It's Not Just For, Like, Dumbass Valley Girls Anymore!
    • But English teachers will still, like, freak out over it so like, try to like, censor yourself.
    • Like, you can have lots of fun by, like, listening to other students try to, like, give an oral report and, like, count the number of times they, like, say "like." Six, by the way.
  • It's like, also like, really common with like, certain British subcultures like. For some, like, this sentence would, like, be an exaggeration, like. But, like, for others, like, it's like, totally not though, right, innit though.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Like_Is,_Like,_a_Comma?oldid=1933716"