Can't help but infer commas on this sign in California hotel: "alarm makes, like, a whooping sound" @wayword pic.twitter.com/b2CAvmlzeU
— Michael P. Gerlek (@mpgerlek) February 24, 2014
While it's funny to laugh at the stereotype of Californians saying 'like' (but highly problematic to stigmatise the speech trends associated with teenage girls), I'm intrigued. I would love to think that this sign is influenced by this common feature of speech in the region, but I also wonder if it's to do with the very large Spanish influence in California, where in Los Angeles, for instance, 36% of people speak Spanish at home. Is this a possible word order in (American) Spanish, as well as the English-like order hace un ruido como... ('makes a noise like...')? Then hace is intransitive, though, which probably isn't right. Perhaps it really is, like, filler-like after all.
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