Sunday 29 November 2015

Correct use of the word "like".

Two of these sentences are grammatically correct and are verifiable statements of fact (true/false). One is meaningless to the point of being gibberish:

1. "I am sitting in the garden."

2. "I like sitting in the garden."

3. "I am like sitting in the garden."

5 comments:

Mark In Mayenne said...

I saw "get's" the other day.

Mark Wadsworth said...

MIM, that sort of thing really get's up my nose.

Bayard said...

No 3 is wrongly punctuated; it should be written "I am, like, sitting in the garden." "Like", here is a different word to "like" in No 2, meaning "similar to", so what this literally means is "I am doing something similar to sitting in the garden" That may be inaccurate, in that the speaker is not doing something similar to sitting in the garden, but is actually sitting in the garden, but it's not completely meaningless.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, I was in too minds about the punctuation but decided not to give the buggers the benefit of the doubt.

Bayard said...

Mark the snag about being a pedant is that you must be correct yourself, so saying "I was in too minds" is a bit of an own goal. Motes and beams and all that.