I was like, what?

This is NBA rookie star Blake Griffin, quoted in a story about a knife-wielding man at Staples Center.

“And Randy Foye came in and said: ‘Yo, somebody just pulled a knife.’

I was like, ‘What?'”

My reaction to this sort of language is not what you might expect. I do hate stupid misuse of language, but I hate haughty “purists” just as much: living languages are living, after all.

First, I must admit that “Yo” is a very annoying addition to the language in my opinion. I’ve never used it and never will, and it was already there for the taking in my early adulthood, so I’m not just frowning at the kids here.

As for the classic “I was like, what?”, in principle it ought to be seen as an even worse degeneration. Surely I’d never say it myself, and I hope most of you wouldn’t, either. However, the Valley Girl thing has been with us for nearly 30 years now, and it may be here to stay.

Imagine if Griffin had said, “And I replied, ‘What?'” or “I asked Foye for clarification of what he had said.” Those may sound more correct, but they don’t capture the real nuances of “I was like, what?” This phrase, however annoying it may be to lovers of good standard English, was invented because it does some actual rhetorical work.

First, it evokes an emotional state of astonishment in a way that the other sentences do not. But you also can’t replace it with “And I was greatly surprised,” because Griffin probably did literally say “What?”, and that’s an important part of the scene.

Annoying as it still seems, this Valley Girl talk only needs to stick around for another century or two before it becomes a supple part of the arsenal of literary language. Perhaps future linguists will praise this once annoying feature of 20th century American English as a remarkably flexible conceptual tool. Or maybe it will just die out and sound ridiculous to us in 20 years. But I already made the mistake of thinking heavy metal would die by the mid-1980’s, and I wouldn’t want to make another losing bet against usages of this sort.

From my Penn State days… I jokingly complained to a waitress at the Corner Room that she’d given me my dinner but no silverware. Her response: “And you’re like, ‘Oh my God.'”

That was 20 years ago. Blake Griffin was probably barely born at that point. But here we are. Nothing has changed. Like like like like like must be filling a real mental need.