[Gllug] Schoolboy Grammar

[Nix]

On 28 Mar 2012, Robert verbalised:
> If someone is able to translate technical jargon to plain English for
> the audience to understand the points being expressed, and they can
> avoid the disastrous butchering of the English language that requires
> you to seek confirmation at the end of every sentence, "yer", "you get
> me", "you know what I mean"

As a random aside, many sentence-final tags have other purposes than to
seek confirmation (actually, I'd say that most do, from softening
otherwise harsh sentences through to assisting with conversational
grammar by indicating when another speaker is expected to take over).
They have meanings as subtle and difficult to clearly define as any
other part of the language. They just happen to be a marker of
informality and, in the UK at least, a class marker. That doesn't make
them bad.

Informal conversational English has several such tags, 'innit' probably
being the most common in much of the south-east, but 'y'know' is pretty
common too. (Though anything is annoying when overused: I was on the bus
last week with one old lady who used 'you know what I mean' in *every
sentence* and sometimes repeated it two or three times for emphasis.)

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