Um, I was like okay.

I often hear people saying "Um.. I was like, okay?"

What do they mean?

How can you be like okay?

<<"Um.. I was like, okay?" >>

"Um.. I was like, okay" [with ro without question mark] would be something one says or thinks when one is taken aback somewhat, and then blows it off without recourse.

For example, If someone came up to me out of the blue and said "Hey! I don't want you to EVER talk to me AGAIN!" I could express this to a third party and then say "um, I was like, okay" meaning that my response to them was: "(well,) okay (,have it your way...)" but that I was also rather shocked by it

"okay" would have been what I would have said in response to the person who accosted me.

Why would you say "okay" in situations like that?
Wouldnt "What the heck/f***" be more fitting?

I may well be one of the worst offenders for this, but I blame my job for this because that is what I have been trained to do - to capture in words anything which I know interests me but - very much more importantly - anything which I feel would interest others. In a nutshell, I just love our English Language and I so enjoy using it, both in speaking it or writing it, and I enjoy popping in an out of Antimoon when circumstances and time constraints permit and then contribute to any thread which I feel may have at the very least some kind of link or relevance to what I want to say. I certainly don't have the expertise of some of our really excellent posters in here who clearly demonstrate great skill in the logistics and phonetics of the English Language and who make such interesting and valuable contributions, and I love the difference in writing styles and use of terminology. To those of you mentioned my name in here - thanks very much for your kind words!

there is a rather strong difference between:

i like you (attraction)
and
i was like you (similar)
and



i was like, you! You're the one who drank my last soda! (filler)

--a filler is extralinguistic information.--

the sentence could easily be changed to:
i was uh, you! You're the one who drank my last soda! (filler)

i was um, you! You're the one who drank my last soda! (filler)

i was all, you! You're the one who drank my last soda! (filler)


farthermore, that's right i said it, farthermore, the phrase could now be better understood, if i said, and only if i said:

"and i was all, like, um, uh...you like, like her or love her?"

Mark
Californian-English.com

Steve - somehow I am experiencing a wee bit of "deja vu" right now! How weird is that!

Yeah, I saw some weird post where "I" mentioned Candy as an old poster from long ago -- nice sentiment, but I can't take credit for it, because I didn't write it. And yet here you get someone lifting a whole paragraph from one of your posts and putting his name on it -- must be a full moon!

"Like" is NOT filler. This is a very common misperceptions. It can be used as filler, but it has an important linguistic function. Normally, putting something in quotes means "This is EXACTLY what was said". Since most of us don't have perfect recall, "like" can be used to signify that what follows is an approximate quote.

Isn't that more of a Valley girl thing?
Or at least American thing.

I wonder British people say "like" as often as Americans do when they converse.