Letter: 'Like' is like '50s expression
Wednesday, March 22, 2000 | 9:48 a.m.
This was, like, a well-known cliche of beatnik talk by 1960. On television, Maynard G. Krebbs on "Dobie Gillis" ("Mr. G. is going to, like, kill us!") and Jinx the Cat on "The Huckleberry Hound Show" ("You meeces are, like, going to pay for this.")
Both interjected "like" into most of their sentences. My friends and I in the suburbs of Detroit during the '50s and '60s used "like," like, all the time.
ALAN ZUNDEL
archive