I was like, "I don't like this use of the word like".

Over the last few years an insidious speech pattern has emerged. Many people, when describing a conversation will not say "Frank said 'I'm going to punch you in the nose' and then he ran away" but instead will say "Frank was like 'I'm going to punch you in the nose' and then he ran away". Now, annoying as little verbal tic is, I could live with it if  "He was like" always meant "He said". But it doesn't. Sometimes it describes a generalizes impression. Sometimes "He was like 'I'm not going to do what you say'" just means that "he" was projecting an unspecific refusal to do what you're asking. So when I hear this particular grammatical usage, I can never tell whether someone is faithfully quoting or even coming close to an accurate reproduction of a conversation. Keep in mind that I'm not describing the usage that seems to have originated in the sixties and been perpetuated by episodes of "Scooby-Doo", when the word "like" was inserted in lieu of a pause: for example, "He was like, going to punch me in the nose", or "That band was like, groovy, dude". Nope, this is a new thing. Every once in a while I get exasperated at this usage and stop a person who is using it. I'll ask them if when they're saying "He was like" they really mean "He said" and are they accurately reporting what was said? Invariably I get a confused look, as if I am speaking Xhosa. I am almost ready to give up on this, but I must stand strong. I know the battle is almost lost when I see this usage in newspapers like (that was a correct use of "like" by the way) the New York Times, although usually they're just quoting someone verbatim who uses the word in that manner. Another version that doesn't confuse me as much, but is just as irritating is when it's used as shorthand for a mental or emotional state. For instance, if I am describing my amazement that a certain event had just transpired, I might say "I was like 'wow'", or even more perplexing, if  am relating that I am confused about something I would say "I was like 'what's going on here?'" - not at all suggesting that I actually said or thought "What's going on here?", but that the phrase basically represents my thoughts.

I'm like, "This is so ungrammatical".