The use of the word like (in expressions such as "I'm like . . . " and "she was like . . .") to introduce a quotation, thought, attitude, or feeling. Also called "quotative be like."

Although quotative like appears more frequently in casual speech than in writing, it is also used in texting, instant messaging, and other forms of social media.

See Examples and Observations below. Also see:

• Constructed Dialogue

• Direct Quotation and Direct Speech
• Discourse Marker
• Indirect Quotation and Indirect Speech
• Quotative and Quotative Frame
• Reporting Clause
• SIgnal Phrase

Examples and Observations

• "I hate when I look at pictures of myself and I’m like, ‘I know that day was the day I was freaking out about my skin,’ or I felt like I didn’t fit in with everyone or I didn’t dress like everybody else."
  (Miley Cyrus, quoted by Kaitlyn Folmer at al. in "Miley Cyrus Launches Foundation to Help Homeless Youth." ABC News, May 5, 2015)
• "'We were watching ESPN when Bryce Harper had that three-home-run day,' says [David] DiPaola, 'and we saw the first one, and he's like, "Oh my God. That's unbelievable." And I'm like, "Well, Joc [Pederson], you hit two home runs tonight--that's pretty cool too."'"
  (Albert Chen, "New Joc City." Sports Illustrated, June 1, 2015)
• Rose Tyler: With you, did he do that thing where he'd explain something at like, 90 miles an hour, and you'd go "What?" and he'd look at you like you've just dribbled on your shirt?
  
  Sarah Jane Smith: All the time! Does he still stroke bits of the TARDIS?
  
  Rose Tyler: Yes, he does! I'm like "Do you two want to be alone?"
  (Billie Piper and Elisabeth Sladen, "School Reunion." Doctor Who, 2006)
  

• "And this police officer was coming out of the store, and Sam's friend asked him, you know, 'Do you know anywhere to get gas around here?' And so he's like, 'Well, there's this little convenience store around the corner.' So he's giving us directions; he said, 'Not too many people know they have gas there.' We were like, 'We don't know what he's talking about.'"
  (Angela Trahan. Second Line Rescue: Improvised Responses to Katrina and Rita, ed. by Barry Jean Ancelet, Marcia Gaudet, and Carl Lindahl. University Press of Mississippi, 2013)  
• "So it was down to like, three guys there, and his goal was live events with three or four wrestlers. And so he came to me and was like, 'Do you want to practice? You want to train?' I'm like, 'I can't afford it. I just paid six grand for school, and now you want another three grand to learn how to wrestle.' And I was like, 'Well, I can't afford it, you know.' He said, 'Well, you're on the show. It'll be free.' And I said, 'Well yeah, it's a free internship.'"
  (Mike McMullen, I, Superhero!!: We Wear Tights So You Won't Have To. Citadel, 2010)
• "'My ex-girlfriend used to say that to me,' says Johnny, another history student. 'She was like, "I don’t agree with it. It’s unfair." And then when the pressure was on, she was like, "Can you give me some?"'"
  (Carole Cadwalladr, "Students Used to Take Drugs to Get High . . .." The Observer [UK], February 14, 2015)
   
• Origins of Quotative "Like"
  "'I’m like' first emerged in American English in the second half of the 20th century, originating from other uses of like, according to Patricia Cukor-Avila, a linguist at the University of North Texas. 'We already had like as in, "she acts like this," so it’s a really easy step to go from something like that to introducing a thought,' Cukor-Avila said. When linguists first noticed 'I’m like,' in the early 1980s, it was primarily used to report inner states, not direct speech, as in, 'I was like, Oh my god.' The term was probably born in California, as Frank Zappa’s 1982 parody 'Valley Girl' song suggests: 'She’s like oh my god / like bag those toenails . . ..'
  
  "Studies in American cities in the mid-90s found young people using 'I’m like' well over half the time to describe a quote. . . .
  
  "'I was like' is neither just 'I said' or 'I thought,' but an opening into either direct quotation or inner condition, as well as a much wider range of dramatic reenactment or, especially on the Internet, visual representations of feeling. In 2009, linguistic anthropologists Graham M. Jones and Bambi B. Schieffelin studied the IM messages of American college students and found that 'I’m like' had spread to an unprecedented degree and was now being used with text expressions of gesture and emotion: 'and he’s like::moans:: Nooo.'"
  (Britt Peterson, "Linguists Are Like, ‘Get Used to It!’" The Boston Globe, January 25, 2015)
• Like as a Quotative Frame
  "The following examples show that the teenagers have at their disposal a variety of constructions with like that may be used to frame quotative use of language:

  (136) and I'm like, and I'm like, scum! [laugh] . . .
  
  (141) And then he goes like, sorry man, close the door and get out
  
  (142) She slides down the banister and says like blurgh, la blah la blah loo!

  It is not uncommon that like alone functions as a demarcation marker between a quotation and the rest of the utterance."
  (Anna-Brita Stenström et al., Trends in Teenage Talk: Corpus Compilation, Analysis, and Findings. John Benjamins, 2002)
   
• In Defense of Quotative Like
  "The quotative like is disdained as a symptom of laziness, carelessness, bad habits, or just bad rhetorical manners. But linguists argue that it encourages a narrator to embody various participants in a conversation. The speaker vocalizes what various participants say, while at the same time expressing her own attitudes toward those utterances. She can dramatize multiple viewpoints, one after another, telegraphing which views she sympathizes with and which she does not. It's much better than a he-said, she-said recitation, the single syllable allowing the expression of moral indignation, sarcasm, or slapstick humor. . . .
  
  "The quotative like can also be tantamount to a virtuoso impersonation, a pantomime of facial expressions, hand gestures, gestures, sounds, and random noises:

  - I was like [speaker puts hands up in surrender, puts up peace sign, points finger down throat, or something similarly dramatic]
  - The announcer was like, 'GOOOOOOOOOOOAL!'
  - I ran into my ex and was like [speaker makes a face of horror]

  And here's what's cool: None of these sentences would work if say were substituted for like."
  (Constance Hale, Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose. Three Rivers Press, 2013)