I've been wondering about the like-construction too. I have noticed a tendency among my students to incorporate direct quotations into their own speech and writing rather than rephrasing thoughts to fit seamlessly into the grammatical structure of a new sentence. The like-construction facilitates this tactic. One writes or says, "He was like 'Oh wow!" rather than "He was very impressed." Have others noticed this undigested-chunks tendency? The use of a direct quotation as the object of the preposition like seems grammatically intelligible to me. Stylistically, I think it sends the message that the speaker or writer is not very adept at manipulating the language. The use of "went" to introduce an interjection -- perhaps that is influenced by "The pig goes oink!" Around here, however, I think people use BE more often to introduce the like construction. I'm also curious what other ATEGers think about "like." On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Janet Castilleja wrote: > Dear Ategers > > How would you folks analyze these sentences? > > 1. He went, like, "you're crazy!" > > 2. He was all like "You're crazy!" > > Janet Castilleja > Heritage College > Toppenish WA > > To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: > http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html > and select "Join or leave the list" > > Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ > To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/