Caroline O'Donoghue: how language changes with time - and how it reflects on us

"I find all this riveting: the fact that a skirmish in 18th century France could lead to a melding of language in Cork, and the evidence has ended up in Cheryl Cole’s mouth"

Fri, 12 Nov, 2021 - 18:00

Caroline O’Donoghue

I read something the other day that was so fascinating that I suspect it’s not true, but I’ll pass it on to you, anyway. I was trying to find out the origins of ‘like’ in the Cork dialect.

Young women are often told off for using the word ‘like’ too much anyway, and when you’re a Cork young(ish) woman you tend to double up on your usage. You use it in the normal, arguably American way, which is as a filler word, when you’re telling anecdotes – ‘and I was like, no way, and he was like, yes way’ – and you use it at the end of your sentences, in the Cork way.