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I thought that the quotative "be like" was limited to American English, but was surprised to hear a 60-something New Zealand woman using it repeatedly recently. What is the status in world English?

(I am referring to "be like" to introduce a quotation or internal monologue, as is discussed in e.g. this paper: http://www.jstor.org/stable/455910 )

hunter
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    I think it's pretty global at this point. I keep hearing it among the Irish and British speakers everyday, if I get you correctly. It would be better if you had provided an example sentence as well. – Neeku Jul 24 '14 at 11:13
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    What are you talking about? The question is totally unclear. Give examples, examples, examples. – Fattie Jul 24 '14 at 11:51
  • I added a reference with examples for those who haven't heard of it. – hunter Jul 24 '14 at 12:48
  • possible duplicate of What does “I’m like, c’mon guys. I’m the president of the United States.” imply? – FumbleFingers Jul 24 '14 at 13:04
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    (2) It's a common usage here in the north of England amongst under-30s say. (1) Previous threads pick up on the fact that, though 'He's like: "What's that under the table?" ' looks and behaves like a quote structure, there is an implication that the accuracy of the 'quote' part may not be 100%. So 'He's like' = 'He said something like' (as well as perhaps 'He said'). 'Like as a hedging/approximative quotative' is addressed in a paper by I Buchstaller. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 24 '14 at 13:38
  • @EdwinAshworth interesting paper! I suspect that the rapid spread of the form (as opposed to other Americanisms) has to do with its utility for precisely this function. – hunter Jul 24 '14 at 14:06
  • Many people I have known would have been quite happy to come out with 'My mum says 'You mustn't do your homework', so I'm not sure they are too bothered about hedging. The popularity of the pragmatic marker usages of like ('We were like walking past this old feller' (filler) / 'Like – let's get going!' (attention grabber)) and the expression 'What're you like!' have doubtless influenced the growth of the quote (or is that quotish? pragmatics or syntax here?) structure. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 24 '14 at 14:21

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I hear it plenty in Canadian English, as well as the occasional ( and similar ) "be all", as in this example:

'So I see my friend at the bus stop, and he's all, "did you see that seagull take a crap on that guy's head?!", and I'm like, "no way, where?"'

bernz
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