The rise of quotative like (I was like, What?) has been swift and striking since it emerged a few decades ago. No word stays exactly the same, but the changes and extensions to like have been more noticeable than most on account of its versatility, popularity, and prominence.
So what will happen to like in the future? More change, if these tweets are anything to go by:
If you click on Sarah’s first tweet (or its date, in some browsers) you can read more follow-up discussion.
I would have been confused by what the child meant, and I’d probably have exhausted her patience long before figuring it out. The fact that Sarah Shulist is a linguistic anthropologist and Alexandra D’Arcy is a sociolinguist (who has done research on like) may have helped them infer the child’s intent more quickly in each case.
Posted by Stan Carey 
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