I noticed recently that the guy in the adjacent cube, who spends a lot of time on the phone, often starts a sentence with “Yeah…no…”
Which I guess means, “I acknowledge what you say, but need to negate it.” But I was struck by the ridiculousness of this particular turn of phrase. And now I can’t not hear it when it happens. (And now I bet I’ve infected you.)
And on last night’s Dancing With the Stars, Cody Linley did it twice in one short interview.
There was some discussion about this on Language Log a while ago.(Language Log: Yeah no) Every since, I hear this all the time!
But unlike you, I don’t hate it. I find it kind of fascinating, linguistically speaking.
I have a feeling I’ll be hearing this everywhere now…!
I have a friend who narrates. "So I said “blah” and she said “blah blah” and I said “whatever’ and I said “this too” and she said “this thing” and she said “this other thing” and I said “well that’s the end of that””.
It gets really annoying on the phone, ever since it was pointed out to me!
I actually had someone say “shut up” to me today and mean it*. It was all I could do not to hang up on her.
My wife does this, but we’re still married anyway. I have to fight the urge to say “can I get a summary of this conversation?”
This is very common among teenage girls and women in their 20’s. Usually they say “and I’m like…and she’s like…” rather than saying “and I said…”
Like Ohhhhh My GODDDDDDDD!
“Then he goes like… so I go like…, but he goes back like …”
Is worser.
I am bothered by the double “is.”
“My point is, is that…”
“What I want to know is, is what…”
My brother mentioned the phenomenon once and I haven’t been able to ignore it since. Curses.
I’m not sure what tic the OP is mentioning - do you mean beginning a sentence with “no” when there’s no “no” required? (Gads, say that out loud).
I use “no” to pick up an interrupted conversation, thus:
Me: blah, blah
Fiancee: blah blah
(intervening event or silence)
10 mins later:
Me: No, (repeats blah blah)
Annoying, no?
Starting a sentence with “Yeah, no” – when neither is really required.
Goodness, that is excessive - and confusing.
How I Met Your Mother did a nice riff on this.
“You’re going to Marshall’s for Thanksgiving, huh?”
“Yeah, no, it should be a great time.”
“You realize you just said Yeah no?”
“I did? Huh. Interesting. Yeah, no, I’m really looking forward to it.”
“You just did it again.”
“Yeah no, shut up.”
My latest irritation is the co-worker who says “and that” as a catchall sentence-ender. “So I went to my parents house and that.” “I ate a cheeseburger and that.”
Gah. It makes no sense. When the sentence has ended, stop talking!
I hear “y’know” and “she said” a lot. What bothers me most is when they make up nearly half of a conversation. I don’t even understand what point they serve. Well, I can imagine this point: I want to keep talking, but my brain hasn’t filled in the next words yet, and I don’t want you jumping in and interrupting me, so I’m going to add redundant meaningless words. Is there a word or shorter phrase for that sentiment?
A conversation can sound like this:
Friend: So, y’know, she says, y’know, “Larry,” and she says, “insert five words of conversation.” She says, “three more words,” y’know, “two more,” she says, she says, “four more words here.”
Me: Yeah.
Friend: Uh huh, y’know…
Yes, I’ve had people repeat “she says, she says” like that. Having noticed it in one person, I begin to notice it in others more frequently over the last year or so.
I first came across “Yeah … no” in Little Britain, but they were probably picking up on an established thing as they are incapable of originality.
The one that annoys me is this guy near my desk who uses “… or something along those lines” in nearly every conversation.
My sister does the Yeah, No thing. And my mom does the play-by-play but it’s "I sez, and the she sez, and then I sez, and the she sez . . . " I always want to jump off a skyscraper by the 3rd or 4th sez.
But I don’t think these are “tics”, per se, at least not in the definition of tic that I am familiar with.
Damn, that bugs the hell out of me too.
And then there are the people who stick “you know” after every phrase.
I know a guy that uses “for” in place of “so” all the freakin’ time. Someone pointed it out to me and now I notice it every single time he speaks. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him use the word “so.”
Cow-orker of mine peppers his speech with “i’en,” which I gather is an odd contraction of “I mean,” but it comes across as “ein, ein, ein.”
And then all I can think about are one-legged stormtroopers hopping through the streets of Paris.
It’s you know slurred to ya know. My response is “Since I know, we don’t need to talk.”