"What's this software? Like, 9 years old?"

[victor steinbok]

To me, the equivalent expression that I find to be quite common is "This
software is, what, 9 years old?" In this case, it's obvious that the
question is something like "This software is 9 years old--is that right?"
and "what" is completely superficial, other than suggesting the "is that
right?" part. But it does not carry the actual meaning--that we are suppose
to divine from the entire structure. It's practically a question by
assumption--which is what I tried to convey by +[qualifier].

VS-)

On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 4:04 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 12:30 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Are you inserting the first question mark prosodically? I would expect a
> > single sentence in both cases... What's==is+[qualifier]
> >
>
> I'm not sure what you mean.
>
> IAC, _What's this software? …?_ was written in a post to a software
> site. _What's he gonna pay? …?_ I heard.
>
> I'd have expected, "What's he gonna _do_? _Pay_ two men to do the same
> job?"
>
> In the former case, I'd have expected "What's this software_'s age_?
> Like 9 years old?"
>
> Or something like that.
> --
> -Wilson
>

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