Caroline O'Donoghue: how language changes with time - and how it reflects on us
Caroline O'Donoghue: spellbound as ever by how language reaches us
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.
