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{ Tuesday, April 1, 2003 }

Irritating speaking habits

From chronofile:

I just got back from my Women's Lit class where we had a guest lecturer speaking about Phillis Wheatly. He had an incredibly annoying habit of ending his sentences with "what?", then immediately answering his own question (it generally sends me up the wall when people do that; q.v. also "Am I saying that it's always annoying to answer one's own questions? Yes. But, am I saying that I never do such, try as I may to expurgate it? No."). Sometimes he included whole substrata of whats. What follows is an actual quote I recorded verbatim from the lecture: "The new governor brought what? Fair what? Rule. And the previous governor was what? Deaf to their what? Their complaints."

Unrelated: Stewart has been dancing about doing the can-can while singing "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir" a la Moulin Rouge. (And, since I read him the anecdote above, I've got him say saying things such as, "I am walking towards the sink so I can what? Wash the what? The dishes.")

LINK | 12:11 AM | TB

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{ COMMENTS }

"And you're doing what?" "Throwing your pens at what?" "Me and it what" "Hurts like mad so what?" "Please stop it..."

Sorry.

Gordon | April 1, 2003 3:57 AM

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"And you're doing what?" "Throwing your pens at what?" "Me and it what" "Hurts like mad so what?" "Please stop it..."

Sorry.

Gordon | April 1, 2003 3:57 AM

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Ok, I am what? Laughing too hard now. Thanks for giving me the what? Early morning giggles.

Tina

Tina | April 1, 2003 8:18 AM

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heh. That just put Ferris Bueller's teacher in my head with his "Anyone? Anyone?"

shelley | April 1, 2003 9:07 AM

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Brings to mind a dreadful 10th grade Latin teacher I had, who compulsively punctuated every other point with "OK" or "Alright." To make matters worse, he looked vaguely like a mustachioed Christopher Walken, and kept a small bust of Nero on his bookcase.

Carlos | April 1, 2003 9:41 AM

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Very funny! Add to irritating speaking habits the tendency of today's teenage girls to curve every sentence up into a question mark: "So, like, today? We went downtown and hung out?"

Emily | April 1, 2003 11:19 AM

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I had an 8th grade math teacher that didn't punctuate, but rather prefixed, with "Ok".

"Ok, ok. Ok, so if you know x, and you know y, ok, what theorem will we use to derive the area z, ok, given ..."

Like most of 8th graders, I started keeping score. I counted 89 ok's one day.

Johnny | April 1, 2003 12:53 PM

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"Jennifer was all 'Chuh', so I'm like 'What-EVer'"

"So you're saying what? You're saying Jennifer is what? Mad at you? Jennifer is mad at you."

In the latter portion of my college career, I was working with one of my math professors on a book. He had the odd speach habit of asking a question by making an assertion, then following it with "Or?"

"This should be a separate chapter by itself. Or?"

I liked it so much, I do it myself now. And that's a good thing. Or?

Jim | April 1, 2003 3:51 PM

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I don't know any English speakers who habitually end sentences with "Or?" but in German it's quite common (in German it's "Oder?" or some equivalent in the local dialect).

It's one of the Germanisms I often miss, but the closest thing to an acceptable English substitute is to end a sentence with "Right?", and even that would be perceived as an annoying tic if you did it very often.

Prentiss Riddle | April 4, 2003 12:24 PM

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you're all idiots. what the heck are you talking about....

danielle | September 9, 2003 6:37 AM

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