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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2010Morrison: It liked to killed
Hello: "It liked to killed the woman" seems to mean: "It killed, like, the woman." Is the original standard, or dialect? --- [Imaginary sequence: Solomon/Shalimar, an African-American patriarch, takes off from a rock to fly by his own power for Africa, from where his ancestors were brought as slaves. He leaves behind wife Ryna and their 21 sons.] "Went right on back to wherever it was he came from. [...] It liked to killed the woman, the wife." Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon, p. 323 --- -- Thanks. > Hello: > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Is the original standard, or dialect? Dialect, AAVE and southern U.S. and probably other places. I've mostly seen "like to", meaning "almost". (I don't think I've heard it much, if at all.) You could try searching for "like to died". Or here's the DARE: http://books.google.com/books?id=eEB0YFR2EowC&pg=PA356#v=onepage&q=&f=false > --- > [Imaginary sequence: Solomon/Shalimar, an African-American patriarch, [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon, p. 323 -- Jerry Friedman >> Hello: >> [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > http://books.google.com/books?id=eEB0YFR2EowC&pg=PA356#v=onepage&q=&f=false This one actually has a reasonably long pedigree. The OED cites it to ca. 1560, an notes that Shakespeare used it ("I have had four quarrels, and like to have fought one.") in _As You Like It_. They note that it's "now colloquial or dialectical" and as "like to <verb>" rather than "had like to have <verb>ed" it's now chiefly American and colloquial. The "liked to killed" rather than "like to kill" strikes me as further non-standard, but perhaps an attempt at sounding more educated by inflecting the verbs.  SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |This isn't good. I've seen good, 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |and it didn't look anything like Palo Alto, CA 94304 |this. | MST3K kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com (650)857-7572 http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ >>> Hello: >>> [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] >me as further non-standard, but perhaps an attempt at sounding more >educated by inflecting the verbs. In Virginia, I sometimes heard the colloquial expression, "It like to have killed...". I've yet to hear a similar expression in Ireland. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs, An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE >>> "It liked to killed the woman" >>> seems to mean: [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > to kill" strikes me as further non-standard, but perhaps an attempt > at sounding more educated by inflecting the verbs. Somewhere in that development is the fairly transparent formula "be like to". He is like to die, she was like to give the boy a whipping. I have always taken the other forms to be confusions of that one, although _As you Like It_ gives pause. Still, it may be read with an understood "have been": "I have had four quarrels and [have been] like to ...". The transfer of inflection from "be" to the adjectival "like" or to the verb that the phrase governs (as in the Shakespeare example) may result from a desire to hang on to the tense-marker in spite of the suppression of the copula. Is it just me, or does that expression tend to be used with verbs of unpleasant result? It liked to kill her/like to have killed her/was like to kill her. [snip discussion of "It liked to kill the woman"] > Is it just me, or does that expression tend to be used with verbs of > unpleasant result? It liked to kill her/like to have killed her/was > like to kill her. The 1913 Webster has lots of definitions of "like," as you'd expect, but one of them agrees with you about negative consequences: 3. To come near; to avoid with difficulty; to escape narrowly; as, he liked to have been too late. Cf. Had like, under Like, a. [Colloq.] He probably got his death, as he liked to have done two years ago, by viewing the troops for the expedition from the wall of Kensington Garden. Walpole. It has another entry, "had like," where one of the examples was positive: 4. Inclined toward; disposed to; as, to feel like taking a walk. Had like (followed by the infinitive), had nearly; came little short of. - Had like to have been my utter overthrow. Sir W. Raleigh - Ramona had like to have said the literal truth, . . . but recollected herself in time. Mrs. H. H. Jackson. Webster of 1828 approved of "to be like to" -- it just meant "likely" -- but thought "had like to" was a "corruption." SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux > [snip discussion of "It liked to kill the woman"] > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > - Ramona had like to have said the literal truth, . . . but > recollected herself in time. Mrs. H. H. Jackson. You mean the walk? The last one, saying the literal truth, looks more like an example of the narrow escape in the other entry. Sorry about the delayed reply: I've been too busy to read the whole list for a few days, and am only now getting this far down it. > Webster of 1828 approved of "to be like to" -- it just meant > "likely" -- but thought "had like to" was a "corruption." I suppose the "had" may be the old use of the subjunctive, where we would have "would have", and somehow the "been" was dropped, maybe by confusion with the verb "like" in "had (would have) liked". > Is it just me, or does that expression tend to be used with verbs of > unpleasant result? It liked to kill her/like to have killed her/was > like to kill her. It tends to, but sometimes the unpleasant result is from an excess of a positive thing, e.g., "like to burst with pride", "like to laughed themselves to death", "like to laugh their heads off". SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |English grammar is not taught in 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |primary or secondary schools in the Palo Alto, CA 94304 |United States. Sometimes some |mythology is taught under that kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |rubric, but luckily it's usually (650)857-7572 |ignored, except by the credulous. | John Lawler http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ >> Is it just me, or does that expression tend to be used with verbs >> of unpleasant result? It liked to kill her/like to have killed [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > of a positive thing, e.g., "like to burst with pride", "like to > laughed themselves to death", "like to laugh their heads off". Yes, metaphorically unpleasant. I don't think there's an adjective like "similitic", or I might have tried "similitically". Was he to burst with pride? No, but like it. In our last episode, <17ca5a74-1651-4ba0-8486-5880416d37a8@g18g2000vbr.googlegroups.com>, the lovely and talented Marius Hancu broadcast on alt.usage.english: > Hello: > "It liked to killed the woman" > seems to mean: > "It killed, like, the woman." > Is the original standard, or dialect? The original means: It almost/nearly killed the woman. It is dialect. "Killed" also may be figurative, meaning caused an extreme emotional disturbance. The truck liked to have runned me over = nearly ran over me. SignatureLars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/> Warbama's Afghaninam day: 53 1292.0 hours since Warbama declared Viet Nam II. Warbama: An LBJ for the Twenty-First century. No hope. No change. |
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