Yes vs. I am

[Tom Kysilko]

Coincidentally, I was at a court hearing just the other day and caught myself
using "I am," "I understand,"  "I have been informed," etc. rather than "Yes,"
in response to a series of questions from the bench.  In my case, I believe it
was for explicitness and variety and to show that I was answering the question
that was being asked.  On the other hand, maybe it *was* to advertise my
membership in the educated class.
--Tom Kysilko

Quoting Matthew Gordon <gordonmj at MISSOURI.EDU>:
> I haven't noticed this particularly, but it wouldn't surprise me if some
> 'educated' people came to favor this usage especially in relatively formal
> contexts. After all, prescriptivist usage guides routinely define a sentence
> as the expression of a complete thought. Thus, answering a question with "I
> am." would be preferred to the incomplete "yes" by this logic.

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