Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
like 1 (adv., adj., prep., subord. conj., n., v., interj.)
Like is a noun (I’ve never seen his like before), a verb (I really like her), an adjective (In like circumstances, I think I’d quit), an adverb (You’ll change your mind, like enough), a preposition (She looks like her mother), and a subordinating conjunction (It seemed like it would never end). The adverbial example may be dialectal or simply Conversational, but the rest are unquestionably Standard, although Edited English frequently prefers to limit the conjunctive use to Conversational and Semiformal use.
The big usage issue since the nineteenth century has been the use of like as a conjunction, but the evidence is clear that we have been both speaking and writing it in Standard English even as we have been filling our handbooks with prohibitions of the usage. The fact is that many will say He runs like he’s pulled a muscle, even though not all will write it and relatively few will try to get it printed in Formal use.
The use of like as intensifier or interjection, however, is Casual at best and Substandard in its heaviest, most adolescent uses: It was, like, three o’clock before we, like, got to the station. See also FUNCTIONAL SHIFT.
