yeah, no

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Mon Jul 16 22:10:57 UTC 2012


Current TV commercial:

LADY AT SEANCE: Thank you, Priceline Negotiator, wherever you are!

SPIRIT MEDIUM: Yeah, no, he's over here.

There's no reason on Wotan's green earth why Beowulf's grandma shouldn't
have been saying the OE equivalent of this (presumably "gese, na") in
similar situations, but I've only been noticing it for a few years.

The "yeah" acknowledges the remark, and the "no" instantly denies its
accuracy before the nay-sayer corrects it.

I've never heard "*yes, no."

Back in the 20th C., when we were all rude primitives, I would have said,
"No, he's over here." Or "(Well)(Actually) he's over here." But possibly
those responses are now either too cruelly direct or employ to many
syllables.

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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



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