The “Like” Word
The word doing the most damage to the communicative “skills” of young people today happens to be a preposition … the word like. It also happens to be a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, a conjunction, and an interjection.
The word like serves as seven of the eight parts of speech (it isn’t a pronoun).
This word does so much damage that we’ll visit it again in the eBook Common Grammatical Mistakes. The discussion there is entitled:
“Like, I’m like gonna like learn how to like talk.”We urge everyone to consult the eBook Common Grammatical Mistakes, read the discussion of the like word, copy and paste it into an MS Word document, and plaster it all over the walls of your teenagers’ bedrooms.
Better yet, if you'd like a complimentary download of that discussion, visit our download page. We've provided a link enabling you to download our analysis of the like word. We urge you to send it to everyone in your entire contact list. And if you have children, pay them to read it.
For now, here’s the word like as a preposition, a noun, and a verb:
He runs like a rabbit. (prepositional phrase) They grow oranges and the like. (noun) She likes to play soccer. (verb)
Previous: Serving as Other Parts of Speech
Next: A Summary of Prepositions
© Grammar.com