Grammar Girl: For Writers and Language Lovers. How 'be like' took over the world, with Sali Tagliamonte
7 snips
Feb 26, 2026 
Sali Tagliamonte, a University of Toronto linguist who studies teen speech and language change, talks about being a language detective using her own children as research. She chronicles a 25-year rise of quotatives like "be like." She explores shifting intensifiers such as "very" making a comeback and considers how AI chat might reshape everyday speech.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Listening To Your Kids Became A Research Method
- Sali Tagliamonte used her five children as an informal research lab by listening to their conversations during drives and activities without telling them.
- She then tested observations in formal interviews and even cites her children in some papers as confirming examples.
MSN Chats Show Playful Not Broken Grammar
- Early instant messaging sparked concern but didn't change core grammar; kids used playful spellings and keyboard tricks instead.
- Tagliamonte studied MSN chats and published a paper showing creativity, not grammatical deterioration.
Be Like Became The Default Quotative
- The quotative be like has become the dominant way people introduce reported speech, not just a teen fad.
- A 25-year study shows one woman's rate of be like stayed the same from age 16 into her 40s, demonstrating persistence across life stages.