"Is it" appended to questions

[Lynne Murphy]

'Is it' is definitely South African.  It's typically said with a slightly
downward intonation, and without any indication that there are two words
there.  (I.e. it's not 'is IT?', it's 'izzit'.)  In the UK, one hears
"innit" (i.e. 'isn't it', but not written/pronounced that way) used in a
similar way, but that is marked as 'youth-y' and 'greater London-y'. (No
such marking on the South African version.) Americans may know 'innit' from
the Ali G character.

Lynne

Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer and Head of Department
Linguistics and English Language
Arts B135
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

--On Saturday, May 12, 2007 11:39 pm -0400 Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
wrote:

> I've heard it in Britspeak in a restricted set of dialogues like the
> following:
>
> Why, John! It's a pleasure to see you, again!
>
> Not at all, dear fellow! My pleasure! (It's) Wilson Gray, is it?
>
> -Wilson
>
> On 5/12/07, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> ----------------------- Sender:       American Dialect Society
>> <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>> Subject:      Re: "Is it" appended to questions
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -------
>>
>> I meant an "is it" appended to questions.
>>
>> In my instance, the writer definitely knew that the person went to
>> Harvard.  I understand the writer's "is it" as reiterating the
>> question, as in "You're embarrassed because ...? Is that it?"
>>
>> Joel
>>
>> At 5/12/2007 12:20 PM, you wrote:
>> > > A friend wrote me in email
>> > >
>> > >> I hadn't heard anything about the story.  However, I assume that you
>> > >> sympathize with him even though you may be embarrassed that he lives
>> > >> in Arlington and went to Harvard, is it?
>> > >
>> > > What regions/dialects is such an "is it" regional to?  Welsh, for
>> > > one?
>> > >
>> > > Joel
>> > > ~~~~~~~~~
>> >  Without being quite sure what you mean by "_such_ an 'is it' ",  my
>> >  guess in this case is that the "is it" only applies to Harvard: that
>> > the writer isn't entirely certain that it mightn't be BU or MIT.
>> > AM
>> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> > Cut & Run? ........... You bet!
>> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
> --
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
>                                               -Sam'l Clemens
> ------
> The tongue has no bones, yet it breaks bones.
>
>                                            Rumanian proverb

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org