Q: Is it common in the South, specifically in Kentucky, for people to use “like” to mean “lack”? For example, a baker saying, “They still like some time” when referring to cupcakes in the oven. What are your thoughts on this usage?
A: The use of “like” to mean “lack” is a regionalism found in the South, not just in Kentucky.
The Dictionary of American Regional English explains that “like” is a pronunciation spelling of the verb “lack” in the South and South Midland regions. A pronunciation spelling is used to represent the pronunciation of a word more accurately than its traditional spelling.
The earliest example cited in the dictionary is from an 1857 report in central North Carolina: “Like for lack” (Tarheel Talk, 1956, by Norman Ellsworth Eliason).
Another DARE citation from northwestern Arkansas in 1905 provides two examples of the usage: “like, v. tr. To lack. ‘I like two dollars.’ ‘It liked two minutes of ten’ ” (Dialect Notes, 1905).
The most recent DARE examples from the 1980s illustrate the usage in western Kentucky and northern Georgia:
- “ ‘You would go to a rest home and leave me by myself?’ he asked, with a little whine. ‘I’ve a good mind to,’ she said. She measured an inch off her index finger. ‘I like about this much from it,’ she said” (from “The Ocean,” in Shiloh and Other Stories, 1982, by Bobbie Ann Mason).
- “You need to understand that in Cold Sassy … We also say … like for lack, as in ‘Do you like much of bein’ th’ew?’ ” (from Cold Sassy Tree, a 1984 novel by Olive Ann Burns, set in the early 20th century).
It is speculated that this usage may have been influenced by the conditional use of the verb “like” to mean “want” as in “I’d like three apples and four pears.”
The usage of “like” for “lack” is not found in the Oxford English Dictionary, Green’s Dictionary of Slang, the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, or other references.
While some Southerners claim that “lack” is spelled as well as pronounced “like” in the region, written examples are primarily from language authorities or fiction writers describing the pronunciation.
A cursory search of social media has not yielded examples of people using “like” for “lack” in writing, but a more thorough search may reveal such instances.
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