[extropy-chat] like definition

[Ian Goddard]

--- spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:

> So perhaps like is a de-exactifyer, or serves the 
> purpose of generalizing, perhaps fuzzifying
> statements.  I listened to sentences with speech 
> fillers, subtracted the low-meaning phrases, and 
> found that the sentences stood fine without the 
> fillers.  But if I subtracted all the likes, the 
> remaining sentences were often too exact or would 
> be overstatements!  


 It would be nice to, like, see some examples. :) 

 It's an interesting matter you explore, you know like
what is "like" doin and stuff. My unanalyzed
assumption would be that "like" serves to denote
(which is to say to emphasize or flag) a similarity
relation that could range over 

"nothing like"  (0)
"kind of like" (0.5)
"exactly like"  (1)

and that "like" itself is neutral with respect to the
degrees of similarity to be applied in a specific
similarity relation. Different phrases could also
specify degrees of likeness/similarity. But this view
is like assumed and untested, I mean like totally...
like, you know what I mean? ;)

~Ian


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