OT, right?

Living at the other side of the globe I catch things like that with (a huge?) delay as I get it through the media, films etc. What I notice since not so many years is the overuse of "like", they say "I am like" instead of "I am saying" etc. How long has this been?

The French version is "n'est pas?"

That's annoying too. The response should be Wrong or Non.

That would be "n'est ce pas?", meaning "isn't it?"

The thing that annoys me on French radio is interviewees starting their replies with "Ecoutez..". Yes, of course he's listening! He just asked you a frigging question!

Jeroen Belleman

What they mean is "I'm right."

They are self-validating, typically when they are wrong. They don't pause for response.

That shows lack of confidence on the part of the speaker as they are begging for confirmation of a dubious position. It also shows concern that they MIGHT be politically incorrect and need reassurance that they haven't strayed off of the party line.

A knew a rampant conspiracy theorist who used to use the word frequently during discussions at McDonald's.

I think it's a challenge to dare to contradict.

Sylvia.

I've seen 'nespar' (and 'kesker-say'), I think used seriously.

Which non-NPR audio programs do you regularly listen to where people don't say "Right?"

There is a lamentable lack of audio content (NPR or otherwise) that features electrical engineerers, competent or not.

Your "question" is nothing but a cheap invitation for anti-NPR rants, of which you have received plenty. Mission accomplished.

Right now and round here "For sure" is the new nervous tick at the end of almost every spoken sentence.

I have a short drive and only listen to the two PBS stations if either is interesting. The rest is music and talk/rant.

Some of the book author interviews on PBS are good, and then I buy the book. Finding The Mother Tree was great. There was one yesterday about animal senses that sounds cool, fish with electric fields and stuff.

I get enough of that at work!

Right.

Wow, f'sure was a 70s thing. It's Baaaack!

Language and fashion and music and food have interesting group dynamics, overlapping time constants of new/cool and old/boring. Like viral infections.

We were just discussing the rage for quinoa. It displaced whole sections of pasta at Safeway, and now it's gone. People will eat horrible nasty stuff if they think everyone else likes it.

Valley-talk for "hardly". That's old by now.

I know. We also have a 70's style energy crisis, cold war back on and in the UK a new PM so incompetent that they don't even know which way is up! I fully expect 70's rolling powercuts and a 3 day week this winter.

Curious behaviour of Covid in the UK this year is that it is already rising rapidly in the community after schools and universities went back. About 3 months sooner than it did last year.

So far serious cases remain low but the Welsh stats show that they will surpass the modellers predicted mid winter peak for hospital admissions next week and are presently running about 60% above the worst case model! It could be a very tricky winter ahead for the UK.

USA at least has enough domestic gas supply to cope.

Fashionable grains come and go much like superfoods.

Oh let them chew all the chaff they want so decent foods like meat etc. stay affordable.

mandag den 17. oktober 2022 kl. 17.19.52 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:

or if someone famous says it is "healthy"

Linguists call them "discourse markers":

"Another example of an interpersonal discourse marker is the Yiddish marker 'nu', also used in Modern Hebrew and other languages, often to convey impatience or to urge the listener to act"

Probably more like that

And you're an expert in the topic, right?