Menu

Language Log: Yeah no
📰
0

Language Log: Yeah no

itre.cis.upenn.edu·@HashtagPLUS·about 1 month ago
#Hb5PFJHQ
Reading 0:00
15s threshold

Yeah no Matt Hutson writes: There's a phenomenon that has interested me for a while, and I noticed a extreme example last weekend. When people mean "yes" they sometimes say "no, yeah" or "yeah, no" and when they mean "no" they say "yeah, no" or "no, yeah" or even "no, yeah, no." On Saturday I was sitting next to someone at a lunch, and I counted four consecutive times when she said "yeah no" in place of "yeah." For example: "Did you like Columbia?" "Yeah no I loved it." (In fact, once I started looking for it, I never heard her say a simple "yeah.") The "no" was almost imperceptible each time, as the meaning was clear, and adding it is a common practice in speech. Do you have any insight into the practice? Patterns in gender or age or situation or setup? Well, there's Vicky Pollard's catch phrase "yeah but no but yeah but ...". Unfortunately, I don't know how to evaluate British class caricatures.…

Continue reading — create a free account

Join HashtagPLUS to read full articles, follow hashtags, vote, and join the conversation.

Read More