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I don’t think I pick up tricks of speech from Veronica, but I noticed last week Madonna, who is 53 going on 23, echoing her daughter Lourdes, aged 14. Lourdes was complaining of her mother’s dress sense, as daughters do: ‘Every day, I’ll be like, “Mom, you can’t wear that”.’ Her mother spoke in the same interview (in the Mirror, as it happens) about how busy she was: ‘Every other day, it’s like, “What am I doing? This is insane.” ’

I find this habit annoying, but it can hardly be called ungrammatical. The grammar is clear if of recent origin. The little Thespian interlude of direct speech is introduced by like as an indicator that the speaker is incapable of summoning up an appropriate adjective (disapproving, say, or hectic).

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David Shipley

Are we missing the point about the ‘Amazon killer’ Axel Rudakubana?

No, of the misuses of like, I find strangest those that supplant as.