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Mind your language

The word ‘like’ is in crisis

6 March 2021

9:00 AM

6 March 2021

9:00 AM

‘Blame Kingsley Amis,’ said my husband, with the carelessness of one defying a man out of earshot. The blame, such as it was, lay in the title of the novel Take a Girl Like You (1960). The ambiguity in the title, he maintained, was between like meaning ‘such as’ and likemeaning ‘resembling’.

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