Expressions that mean duh

[Charles Doyle]

What language scholars sometimes call "pope questions" paremiologists and other folklorists (unbeknownst to the language scholars) have been calling "sarcastic interrogatives" since the 1970s. (Incidentally, in an article forthcoming in _Western Folklore_ I discuss the genre at tedious length.)

However, "duh" retorts are a little different.  For one thing, what triggers them is not necessarily a question. ("The sun rises in the east."/"Duh!"). In fact, I'd say that "Duh!" most often responds to an ASSERTION of something that's obvious. In those cases, Jim Parish's "Ya think?" and William Salmon's "No shit, Sherlock!" would serve well. But I don't know a term for the larger category.

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:25:24 -0600
>From: Susan Burt <smburt at ILSTU.EDU>
>Subject: Re: Expressions that mean duh
>
>I don't know about the "duh" equivalents, but the questions with obvious answers have been called "Pope questions," after one of them: "Is the Pope Catholic?"
>
>Susan
>
>On Mar 26, 2007, at 8:07 PM, Patti Kurtz wrote:

>>
>> Not exactly a dialect question, but a language one.  I'm trying to come up with some different expressions that we use to mean "well, duh"-- in response to a question whose answer is obvious-- for example "Does the sun rise in the east?"  (these are for a novel I'm working on)
>>
>> Is there a name for those?  And can you folks cite some examples?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Patti Kurtz
>> Minot State University

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