# How 'be like' took over the world, with Sali Tagliamonte Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/grammar-girl-for-writers-and-language-lovers-159700/how-be-like-took-over-the-world-with-sali-tagliamonte Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/grammar-girl-for-writers-and-language-lovers-159700/how-be-like-took-over-the-world-with-sali-tagliamonte.md Podcast: [Grammar Girl: For Writers and Language Lovers.](https://stenobird.com/podcast/grammar-girl-for-writers-and-language-lovers-159700) Published: 2026-02-26T10:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/ Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/69c1476c007cdcf83fc0964b/e/6301cb5d-bfb9-4195-8f57-4770438bb194/media.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/grammar-girl-for-writers-and-language-lovers-159700/episodes/how-be-like-took-over-the-world-with-sali-tagliamonte Duration seconds: 1564 ## Resource 1163. This week, we look at what it’s like to be a "language detective" with Sali Tagliamonte and how she used her own teenagers as a research lab. We look at a 25-year study on how the phrase "be like" became a permanent fixture of English, why the word "very" is suddenly making a comeback with younger generations, and what happens to our language when we spend all day talking to AI. Sali Tagliamonte, University of Toronto πŸ”— Join the Grammar Girl Patreon. Thank you to the members of the Order of the Aardvark at Patreon: Linda Cox Laurel Paul Russ Skinner πŸ”— Share your familect recording in Speakpipe or by leaving a voicemail at 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) πŸ”— Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing courses . πŸ”— Subscribe to the newsletter . πŸ”— Take our advertising survey . πŸ”— Get the edited transcript . πŸ”— Get Grammar Girl books . | HOST: Mignon Fogarty | Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network . Audio Engineer: Dan Feierabend, Maram Elnagheeb Director of Podcast: Holly Hutchings Advertising Operations Specialist: Morgan Christianson Marketing and Video: Nat Hoopes, Rebekah Sebastian Podcast Associate: Maram Elnagheeb | Theme music by Catherine Rannus . | Grammar Girl Social Media: YouTube . TikTok . Facebook . Threads . Instagram . LinkedIn . Mastodon . Bluesky . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/grammar-girl-for-writers-and-language-lovers-159700/episodes/how-be-like-took-over-the-world-with-sali-tagliamonte/transcription-requests` β€” Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/grammar-girl-for-writers-and-language-lovers-159700/how-be-like-took-over-the-world-with-sali-tagliamonte.md` β€” Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.