# like = to please - Eng. language "flipping" in meaning



## JB

I hope that this new “linguistics”  forum allows sharing of information, as opposed to just questions, so no poor, underappreciated, overworked, unpaid, selfless, dedicated moderator will have to be bothered deleting it.
 (And if it is mandatory to ask in the form of a question, then I submit "Has anyone else seen this point made before?)


 Translating sentences with “like” from English to Spanish is confusing for most beginning Spanish students, since the structures are reversed (subject - object).
 For example,
 English:  “I like chocolate” becomes
 Spanish:  “Chocolate pleases me”.     


 Spanish-speakers learning English have the same confusion to deal with, and I suspect this applies to all Latin-based languages, perhaps Germanic as well.
 This is why I found the following information concerning the “flipping” of this word fascinating.  For the sake of brevity, I will paraphrase and excerpt briefly.  For more detail, see the source below.
 =======
 Suppose one wants to translate into English the following 15th Century sentence:   
 “This is my loved son *that liketh me*.”
 What the sentence actually meant was
 “This is my beloved son *whom I like.*”
 Originally the verb “like” meant “to please” or “to be pleasing to”, so the phrase “he liketh me” meant “he is pleasing to me” or in modern English, “I like him.”


 The older meaning of “like” was still frequently in use by Shakespeare at the turn of the 17th Century.   


> Host:  The music likes you not?
> Julia_  You mistake; the musician likes me not?
> _(The Two Gentlemen of Verona)_
> Modern English:  Don't you like the music?  You're wrong; I don't like the musician.


The author points out that in Shakespeare's time, both meanings of “like” were in use, and presumably people figured out which was which from context (as we do currently with other similar words in English) but that by the end of the 17th Century  the older meaning had died out in favor of the current one.


 What a shame.  Spanish would have been so much easier for me to learn had I been born before 1600 (but   WR was still very small at that time, so there's the trade-off).   


_The Unfolding of Language, an evolutionary tour of mankind's greatest invention_
 by Guy Deutscher, pg.64-70.  Henry Holt & Co., New York, NY.  2005.


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## Frank06

Hi,


jbruceismay said:


> *[1]*“This is my loved son *that liketh me*.”
> What the sentence actually meant was
> *[2] *“This is my beloved son *whom I like.*”
> Originally the verb “like” meant “to please” or “to be pleasing to”, so the phrase “he liketh me” meant “he is pleasing to me” or in modern English, “I like him.”


I was going to write that Dutch has an etymologically related verb 'lijken' (which now means 'seem') which can be used with a similar construction as 
 your first sentence.
a. Het huis lijkt me in orde.
Word by word:
The house (subj.) - seems - (to) me - okay.

But when I checked in the dictionary, the verb 'lijken' can be used in exactly the same way as in your first example:
b. Dat huis lijkt mij (niet).
Word by word:
that house (subj.) - pleases - me - (not)
So: I (don't) like the house.

I must say that this is the very first time that I come across this particular meaning (and usage) of the Dutch verb 'lijken'. So, I am getting curious about a few things:
1. What Dutch is concerned: 
- Is anybody familiar with this usage in Dutch (hebben jullie dit al ooit gehoord of gelezen?);
- Is it still common? (My guess is no, but I don't want to use my ignorance as a criterion.)

2. What other Germanic languages are concerned:
- Is or was a verb etymologically related to 'like' used in other Germanic languages but with the construction as described in Jbruceisma's first example?

Groetjes,

Frank


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## elpoderoso

There is also the English verb ''Liken'' which is rarely used in spoken English and is no doubt cognate with Dutch ''Lijken''

''I would liken this book to his earlier works''


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## brian

Yes, _like_ can mean two different things in English:

1. _like_ (verb): to enjoy, be fond of
2. _like_ (adj.): similar to

_Liken_ is simply the verb corresponding to (2) and means _to make similar to_, or better, _to compare with, show similarity between._

They both have the same Proto-Germanic root _*liko-_, "body, corpse." See here.

Anyway, to answer your question, JB, _no_, I didn't know about this. It's very interesting though.

As for other Germanic languages, I can't speak for Dutch, but lucky for the Germans they can express this concept in _both_ ways, both being perfectly colloquial and idiomatic:

_I like X = _(a) _Ich mag X_. and (b) _X gefällt mir._

(a) corresponds to our version since _Ich_, "I," is the subject and _X_ is the direct object of the transitive verb _mögen_, "to like." (b) corresponds to the Romance language version since _X_ is the subject and _mir_, "to me," is the dative (objective) pronoun like Sp. _me_ or It. _mi_.

The Old High Germanic version of _to like_ (or Old English _lician_) was _lihhen_, but I don't know if there is any remnant of that as a verb in Modern German, and even if there is, I don't know of it as a normal way of saying _I like X_.


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## ThomasK

@ Frank: I have always considered "Dat lijkt me wel wat " as an ellipse ( "..  wel wat goeds/... te zijn"), but maybe...


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## jazyk

> (b) corresponds to the Romance language version since _X_ is the subject and _mir_, "to me," is the dative (objective) pronoun like Sp. _me_ or It. _mi_.


Portuguese and French are also Romance and they have gostar de and amar. Of course you can also say that something _agrada_ you or that it _plaît_ you, but I'd say that most Portuguese and French speakers associate like with gostar and aimer, respectively. In other words, these two languages, like German, have two ways to say it.


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## ThomasK

@Frank: De Vries (old etymo-dic) mentions _gelijken_ and explains it i.a. as _bevallen_ (to please).

And could there be a link with 'Iets ligt mij wel' (Something pleases me somehow) ? 



But I cannot think of anything in German. I'll ask an 'etymologist'...


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## ThomasK

I have got a very complete answer from Heinrich Tischner, who has his own site about this kind of things. I am copying the information here, only translating some key phrases (in bold): 

germanisch lîka- bedeutete 'Gestalt'/ *shape*. Ableitungen sind:

- Leiche, lijk 'Körper > toter Körper', aengl. líc 'Körper', mittelndl. lijc = süddeutsch Leiche 'Begräbnis' (*dead body*)
- gleich, gelijk, altengl. líc 'eine ähnliche Gestalt habend', daher auch 'passend' (*having the same shape > appropriate)* 
*[rest snipped]*
Seems like excellent information, doesn't it ?

*Seems like a problem with WR rule number 4
Frank, moderator EHL
(who wonders why you didn't simply post the link)*



> *Respect intellectual property.*
> No plagiarized content is allowed. No copyrighted material may be inserted  into posts except as indicated here:
> *Minor fair use excerpts (one or two) from dictionaries are permitted. *Always  acknowledge the source.
> Quotes and translations of prose up to 4 sentences are permitted. No audio or  video files or links may be inserted without prior moderator approval. No  links to YouTube are permitted.
> Song lyrics and verse may be quoted and translated, up to a maximum of 4  lines.
> All forms of inserted content that do not meet these conditions will be removed  without exception.


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## Embokias

Although this isn't specifically about the verb "to like", it still pertains to the flip of subject and object...

It is taught that Latin deponent verbs are "passive in form but active in meaning." 
For example, _uti_ (not utere) = to use.  

*Everything that follows is completely speculation on my part*

I have always assumed that deponent verbs were originally active in form and active in meaning, but that the active use died out, and the passive meaning became thought of as active.  
For example, _utere_ originally would have meant "to serve", but rather than saying "The pen serves the writer," Latin speakers would have started consistently saying, "The writer is served by the pen," So eventually "to be served by" would have been thought of as an active verb meaning "to use".

There are many such deponent verbs, where the "active" meaning probably originally was a passive one.  I have made a game of trying to think of the original active sense of these verbs.  

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?


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## ThomasK

Well, I was only able to paste his personal notes to me: it is a German correspondent, who is a semi-professional etymologist (if that exists) and gave an answer to a question I had asked, not forbidding me to pass it on ! You see ?


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## berndf

elpoderoso said:


> There is also the English verb ''Liken'' which is rarely used in spoken English and is no doubt cognate with Dutch ''Lijken''
> 
> ''I would liken this book to his earlier works''


Modern English "to liken" is a Middle English derivation of the adjective "like".

The verb "to like" is derived from OE "lician", ME "liken". The infinitive "-n" suffix fell off in late ME. The OE and early ME meaning was "to please". The agens-patiens inversion ("it likes me" becoming "I like it") happened it late ME.


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## berndf

Frank06 said:


> 2. What other Germanic languages are concerned:
> - Is or was a verb etymologically related to 'like' used in other Germanic languages but with the construction as described in Jbruceisma's first example?


German has lost the verb_ leichen (<lihhan) _in Early Modern German. The current verb _leichen_ is of different origin. The noun _Leiche_ = _corps_ is derived from _OHG & OE lic = body, flesch_ from which the OE verb _lician _is derived.


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## jmx

I just feel like explaining a small anecdote more or less linked to this thread.


When I was taking German classes and the verb "gefallen" (mentioned in post #4) was presented to us, a lot of fellow students got it wrong and said for example "Ich gefalle Kino". The funny thing is that in both Spanish and Catalan, the native tongues of all the students, the syntactic distribution is the same as in "gefallen": 

_me gusta el cine_ (Spanish)
_m'agrada el cinema_ (Catalan)
I suppose this mistake is related to the fact that most people in the class already spoke some English. But even after our teacher pointed out that "gefallen" is used in the same way as "gustar" and "agradar", the students kept making the same mistake again and again.


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## Forero

German has _gleichen_, also related to (_a_)_like_, which means "resemble" or "favor" (e.g. "He favors his father.")


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## berndf

Forero said:


> German has _gleichen_, also related to (_a_)_like_, which means "resemble" or "favor" (e.g. "He favors his father.")


Can you give me an examples where _gleichen_ means _to favour_? It doesn't ring a bell with me.


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## Forero

Sorry for the confusion. I don't know why, but _favour_ can mean "resemble" (or _gleichen_).

The verb _like_ in English used to have a prefix that was a reflex of the _g-_.


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## berndf

Forero said:


> Sorry for the confusion. I don't know why, but _favour_ can mean "resemble" (or _gleichen_).


I see. I thought you were talking of an alternative meaning of _gleichen_. But in fact, you were talking of the alternative meaning of _to favour_. I am with you now.


Forero said:


> The verb _like_ in English used to have a prefix that was a reflex of the _g-_.


To my knowlege, _glican_ (_to resemble_) and _lician_ (_to please_) were different verbs. They only became homonym because of the loss of of the initial g. The German verb _gleichen_ is cognate to OE _glican_. The German cognate to _lician_, _leichen_, is lost (as I wrote earlier the modern German _leichen_ is of different origin).


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## ThomasK

Can _favour_ mean _resemble_ ??? Could you illustrate that ? (Thanks !)


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## berndf

ThomasK said:


> Can _favour_ mean _resemble_ ??? Could you illustrate that ? (Thanks !)


It is a very colloquial use of the verb. In standard language it is regarded as wrong. "He favours his brother" can mean "he looks like his brother".

It is documented in the OED.


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## Forero

berndf said:


> To my knowlege, _glican_ (_to resemble_) and _lician_ (_to please_) were different verbs. They only became homonym because of the loss of of the initial g.


I think they do have the same root.

The loss of the _i_ after the _c_/_k_ also helps make them homophonous. The _-ian_ suffix in Old English applied to various verbs and had a particular function, something like making a transitive verb from an intransitive one. Compare "They _fell_ trees", with _e_ due to a former _-ian_ suffix, and "Trees _fall_", without the _i_ or umlaut.





berndf said:


> It is a very colloquial use of the verb. In standard language it is regarded as wrong. "He favours his brother" can mean "he looks like his brother".
> 
> It is documented in the OED.


It think this use of _favor_ is standard where I live, spelled without the _u_, but it can certainly be confusing. I can (almost) see swapping subject and object to get from the _please _meaning of _like_ to the usual meaning of the verb _like_, but is there a logical connection between _resemble _and _please_?

And what of the word _likely_ (= probable), apparently with two copies of the same root? How does probability relate to resemblance or pleasure?

Is there some reason _like_ is so prone to shifts of meaning?


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## berndf

Forero said:


> I think they do have the same root.


The common etymology is most certainly a PGerm. noun meaning "body". But the two verbs are separate derivation and *as verbs* were never one. According to Grimm, they were well distinct in Gothic, OHG and OE.



Forero said:


> The _-ian_ suffix in Old English applied to various verbs and had a particular function, something like making a transitive verb from an intransitive one. Compare "They _fell_ trees", with _e_ due to a former _-ian_ suffix, and "Trees _fall_", without the _i_ or umlaut.


In Proto-Germanic -j- verb derivation were a kind of causative. I guess that is what you mean by "something like making a transitive verb". To my knowlege, PGerm. _*falljan_ has already become _fellan_ in OE. You are most probably right. The "e" in _fellan _is due to umlauting caused by the former -j-. Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think the causative meaning of _-ian_ infinitives (as distinct from _-an_ or _-on_ infinitives) was still present in OE.


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