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So...

Mr Cat said:
and when out drinking in carlisle some years ago this guy would say 'eh' after sentences... and the drunker he got the more he said it until he was saying it after every other word in some cases...
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He had probably lived in the outlying parts of Edinburgh for a time, they like to put 'eh' at the end of every sentence. "Went out for a pint last night to the Cask eh? Bumped into big Stevie eh? Said he saw you in the Nest eh?

All the time you want to say don't fecking ask me, you're the one who was fecking well there.
 
It gives the speaker extra time to, mentally, compose what they are going to say next. A bit like how posh accents have longer vowel sounds to make up for the lack of coherent content/give time to think. Watch the start of an Olympic 100m sprint, unless its a false start there is very little to say until 50m by which time there is only about 4.5 seconds left so commentators have to say something to earn their crust-usually 'they are all off safely'. Functionally, it adds nothing.
 
gassor said:
He had probably lived in the outlying parts of Edinburgh for a time, they like to put 'eh' at the end of every sentence. "Went out for a pint last night to the Cask eh? Bumped into big Stevie eh? Said he saw you in the Nest eh?

All the time you want to say don't fecking ask me, you're the one who was fecking well there.
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not sure, he was a friend of a friend, but confused the hell out of me when he was saying all the time, just I'd never heard it before.. :)
 
Does anyone else have a humorous anecdote about someone who's a friend of a friend they met a while ago, perhaps in a pub, who talked funny?

Joe
 
It's actually "Language hath" and "thou would'st be," but pedantry is so unattractive that I'm almost reluctant to mention it. However, having earned my doctorate in Elizabethan English (Title: The roots of American English in the Virginia colony), I'm prepared to overcome my reticence.
 
Waldteufel said:
Why propagate this notion that English is continually evolving? The French have a more conservative attitude to their language.
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Are you one of those amusing people who call cars 'horseless carriages', and lament the day when 'gay' ceased to mean only 'happy'?

OTOH, if you're just joking, haha.
 
Until you call it rigour. Then it's attractive. If I were really pedantic, I'd draw attention to the posters who write "your" when they mean "you're." The perception that some of these people actually hold down jobs and own expensive cars and watches is quite chilling.
 
Waldteufel said:
Yesterday, RTE radio carried an item about the New York cycle path incident. They spoke to a young female American reporter. She began every sentence, and I do mean every one, with the word "So." I'd been vaguely aware of this tendency for some time, but this was the most striking example I'd ever come across. Can anybody shed any light on why this is happening? My own suspicion is that somebody started it, and others have copied.
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http://www.npr.org/2015/09/03/432732859/so-whats-the-big-deal-with-starting-a-sentence-with-so

http://www.slate.com/blogs/business...o_might_be_a_trend_especially_in_silicon.html

It is, as they say these days, "a thing".
 
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Joe
 
Okay, well; so you know what's coming (am a bit late to this linguistic party).

So is either a conjunction or an adverb. Neither can be used to start a sentence in correct English. A conjunction simply joins phrases/sentences. Ergo, 'tis WRONG !

'Like' never made ANY sense at all and was largely the province of the great uneducated young.

'Well;' really doesn't hold water, but does linguistically indicate a pause for thought.

Vocabulary changes, as currently evidenced by the latest additions announced today, but grammar and punctuation rarely (if ever) change. These, with other aspects, are the fundamental building blocks of language.
 
Better late than never, if you talk sense, which you do. It's been suggested that So is a ruse to allow the speaker to think. If so, it would be better to be honest and say Er.
 
Mike Reed said:
Vocabulary changes, as currently evidenced by the latest additions announced today, but grammar and punctuation rarely (if ever) change. These, with other aspects, are the fundamental building blocks of language.
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If that was true then more people would use the subjunctive correctly.
 
I have a question for the computer boffins here. Why do Waldteufel and ClaraBannister resolve to the same IP address and host?

I studied the critter sciences so I can explain in excruciating detail why the tuberous bush cricket has the biggest balls of them all, but even basic computer stuff often boggles my mind. Is there a Richard Daystrom in the fish tank?

Joe
 
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