And here I was about to come in here and blame it all on Stone Cold Steve Austin and his annoying “What?” catchphrase.
In Dublin, ‘what’, or more accurately ‘wha’ is regularly used at the end of sentences. Contrary to the “spiffing day, what what” usage, it’s associated with a particular type of working class Dubliner, usually known as a ‘skanger’. A skanger might say, “are yis goin’ strokin’, wha’” or “deadly runners, wha’” or most commonly “Jaysus, wha’”. It’s intoned as a question but it’s often rhetorical (big words, wha’).
MWAP (on me bleedin’ computer, wha’)
Though a long-term resident of this Fair City[sup]TM[/sup], I am entirely
Luna, yes, I’ve been to Singapore several times, because I was working for a company that was developing buildings in the Johor Bahru land reclamation. I also stayed with a friend in Seletar for a month. Loved it.
What I meant to say was: Though a long-term resident of this Fair City[sup]TM[/sup], I am entirely [incapable of finishing a sentence] unaware of what “goin’ strokin’” means. Please elucidate.
Robbin’, liftin’, yeh bleedin’ blow-in;)
“What” at the end of a sentence was a verbal tic of George III’s - actually, he would often repeat and emphasize it: “What stuff this Shakespeare is! Only one must not say so, what! what!” I don’t know whether the habit began with him; I would guess not, since George III is hardly a role model anyone would want to emulate…
I agree … although I think it’s a abbreviation of “God wot”.
See The Parliament of Fowles
As for what the entire quote means, god wot, what?
Probably means “God knows”. I say that sometimes (“God only knows what you’re doin’ in here”).
Wasn’t this one of Stone Cold Steve Austin’s catchphrases? I’m not a wrestling fan, but some of my friends are so I hear these kinds of things second-hand. I think how it went was when he would say something the crowd would shout back “What?”
I think Stonecold postdates George III by a few years.
It’s just a meaningless verbal spacefiller, like the Canadian “eh” or the Welsh “isn’t it” or the Piratese “arrh”
[Off the top of my head] “Quack!” said the duck emphatically, “God knows, there are more than two stars in the sky!”
While Aro found people in Scotland adding like at the end of sentences like, we also have a huge number of people in Edinburgh who sound Canadian, eh.
Every sentence has to end with , eh
And another thing - why do so many people overuse the phrase ‘as such’ in exactly the same way?
Russell
In Singapore don’t people often say “can?” at the end of a sentence (as in can do/can’t do?)
I read once that it is a female characteristic of conversation to use “isn’t it?” at the end of the sentence. Ie, “it’s cold today, isn’t it?” The purpose of this is not to be didactic in a sentence and instead open it up for further debate/comment, thereby extending the communication.
The same article/book also said that unfortunately the male characteristic can be to interpret that as the speaker needing reassurance/confirmation of the sentence.
Ie, when A (usually the female) says “it’s cold, isn’t it?” she knows it is cold and is just sharing the observation. But B (usually the male) assumes that A doesn’t really know/isn’t really sure.
Am I the only person round here who thinks that sounds Scouse? I remember thos echaps from “The Las” used to add “la” on the end of everything.