Invariant innit, isn ´t it

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Sep 7, 2006, at 9:27 AM, Jonathon Green wrote:

> The point about the current use of 'innit' in London and doubtless
> across the (young, urban) UK is that while it _does_ indeed elide
> 'isn't
> it', it is not in fact used, as would be expected, after a question
> (although this 'traditional' use is of course still as common as
> ever),

a clarification: what these question tags attach to is not a question
-- in the sense of an interrogative clause -- but a statement, that
is, a declarative clause.  the tag *makes* the whole sentence a
question.

> but as a meaningless punctuation, following a statement.

not, i think, meaningless.  in the examples of the innovative use,
like the one you cite below, "innit?" is clearly exclamatory.  (and
in fact the exploitation of interrogative forms for exclamatory uses
is all over the place, in language after language, english
included.)  in some of the examples, it also seems to be inviting
agreement.

it's become a discourse particle, with a variety of functions.

>   I recommend a
> glance at the entry on urbandictionary.com , which gives, inter much
> alia, the example "Yo look at my new car innit!", and suggests that
> it's
> primary use is 'in places where it would make no sense whatsoever if
> expanded'. Urban Dict. contributors suggest that it was first
> popularised either in the Asian community or among white working class
> 'Chavs'. My own bet would be on the latter.

the urbandictionary suffers, of course, from the fact that the people
who write the entries know only what they see about them; they have
no sense of the history, or of the larger current picture (well, how
could they?).  it does seem pretty clear that "innit?" is widely
used, or perceived to be used, both in South Asian communities (among
the young) and among young white working-class chavs/townies/pikies.
(if you want to experience some vitriolic bandying of stereotypes,
check out urbandictionary's enties for "chav", "pikey", and "townie"
-- things like "A townie is a the label for a group of people who
shit on the english language, wear crappy ripoff adidas clothes, have
an I.Q. lower than than my nan's tits, and are as ugly as a hatfull
of ass" are on the mild end of the scale.)

but almost surely this "innit?" continues the earlier london working-
class (esp. "cockney") tag, which has just expanded its functions.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)

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