I’ve often wondered what you say if you don’t hear what they said ..
Is it “I’m sorry, what did you say ?” or “I’m sorry, what are you like ?”
An excellent point! 
It underscores the fact that while the evolution of language is often systematic and logical, its devolution at the hands of valley girls and their ilk usually is not. Pity the poor foreigner for whom English is a second language trying to understand it. That he cannot is the whole point – teen-speak and other aberrations are a form of in-group identity markers, basically just cultural classism.
Cartoons, eh? This one is from 1962:
https://dn801205.us.archive.org/0/items/banty-raids-1963-restored/S27E001_El%20gallo%20mañoso.mp4
Nice find! The “beatnik” era is generally associated with the late 50s to the early 60s, so it’s at least that old!
And here in the UK, people use “go” instead of “say” (as well as “like” ) - I don’t
know if it’s the same in the USA or Canada.. ?
eg…
"He goes ‘you ok ?’ and she goes ‘yeah, whatever’ "
I’m sorry, where did she go ?
No cap, Not to throw shade but a foreigner would be delulu thinking he wouldn’t be totally cooked trying to learn our language. He’d sound cringe. 6-7!
I don’t speak any non-English language well enough to know for sure, but decent bet that young people the world over have in-group slang and all the rest.
“go” is used for “say” in US English as well. Very informal register and tends to be a young person usage they grow out of. Same with “like”.
And I like your point about asking for clarification of something not heard. Nobody would say “How did he go?” or “How did she like?”
Not to relitigate a *very* tired topic w @wolfpup about language evolution vs his claimed devolution, but ...
I noticed something as I was replying to @pjd here.
Young people were using “go” and “like” to substitute for “say” when I was a kid 60 years ago. I sure did. I don’t now, and neither does anyone near my age I know. OTOH, today’s young folks sure do.
My contention here and now is that there is something we might usefully call a “youthful register”. And it’s as distinct as high or low register or literary or technical register. Youthful register has long term multi-decade staying power even though any individual person only stays in the youthful age range for, say, a decade-ish.
“He asked me if I was interested.”
“And I’m like 'yes!”
Adolescent vernacular loses its coolness as soon as an adult uses it. At that point, a new word must be immediately introduced.
The interjection of the word “like” varies from person to person. The frequency can literally be every third word and is really annoying when that happens. To me, it shows a lack of self awareness and a poor foundation in the language. And it’s not just teens. I hear adults using it all the time as a crutch. Another trend that’s been around awhile is the shortening of words, like “suss” for suspicious, “rando” for random, etc., which doesn’t really bother me. The language is fluid.
There’s a book by the linguist John McWhorter called Words on the Move: Why English Won’t – and Can’t – Sit Still (Like, Literally) that I read some years ago. It’s an interesting read, and I don’t mean “interesting” to be wholly complimentary. There’s lots of academically sound information, but some of his reasoning about how and why people drift into non-standard language usage stretches rationalization to the breaking point. One might note that McWhorter writes a lot of books, and I always suspect people like that of courting controversy in order to stay relevant.
Probably quite true, but how does one define “youth”? Because as I mentioned before, I was listening to a radio interview with a graduate student awhile ago about some science subject, and while she was obviously bright and knowledgeable, she could barely utter a single sentence without peppering it with “like”.
Honestly, it was like a speech impediment, but one that originated as a learned-language issue rather than an unfortunate physiological one. I think it might actually be, like, an impediment to her career. Would you, like, hire a valley girl to be your next professor of physics and researcher on quantum cryptography?
The other day I heard a linguist saying that “She was like…” and “She was all…” are a new kind of quotation. Standard quotations tell you what somebody said. To be “like” and to be “all” refer to what someone is thinking or feeling.
My take: it’s the language of vibes. Once the concept of vibes was introduced via a Beach Boys song in 1966, it quickly became part of the Zeitgeist, leading to new quotational forms to speak of it.
I can accept that. I’m normally suspicious of retroactive rationalizations for non-standard language usage, but that actually makes sense. But it doesn’t account for the pervasive use of “like” in other contexts, where it seems to be more of a verbal tic with no actual function.
Yeah, I remember it being in common usage in grade school, which was in Michigan in the 70s. And I would argue that it did have a clear semantic purpose or meaning to it. If you said “she was all, like, I hate that”, you meant she wasn’t actually saying verbatim that she hated that thing, but that her attitude clearly expressed that she hated it.
A lot of the phrases that came out of the Frank Zappa song ‘Valley Girl’, like “gag me with a spoon” or “bag your face” were inventions of Moon Zappa to amuse her father. So anybody saying stuff like “gag me” IRL was probably a case of life imitating art.
I think both constructions are certain to be followed by a quote or paraphrase. However, the quote will be expressed in such a way as to characterize and evaluate the quote. Maybe something like, “She was all, ‘No, you can’t do that,’” will be said with exaggerated mock anger to illustrate the emotion of the quoted speaker and simultaneously express the quoter’s contempt for the quotee.
It’s almost certainly something that humans have been doing as long as we’ve had our present-day language ability.
I’m a 50 year old guy and I use “like” all the time, though not as constantly as Valley Girl speak. It’s extremely common in my experience, but maybe I just hang around ingrates.
I find myself using this like a lot once I let myself go more casual. It seemed to come along when I started using lowercase and shorter sentences so I didn’t stick out as the oldest person in a Discord server.
You’re just so likeable. Unlike me 
True, that’s another thing. A replacement for hemming and hawing. Which means when you go “umm…” and “uh…” Nobody sounds good when doing that. A speaker may seize upon anything to avoid the dreaded hem and haw.
Maynard G. Krebs was saying things like “I’m, like…” on Dobie Gillis back in 1959, long before Valley Girls made it famous. And he was absolutely a beatnik—the goatee, bongos, jazz talk, and terror of “work” made that pretty clear. He may not have invented the modern usage, but he was, like, way ahead of the Valley.