e-Claire

Stop it! Stop it!! Stop it!!!

Swear to dogs: if I hear "YANNO" one more freakin' time I'll grab that inarticulate blundermouth by the throat and wring for all I'm worth. As it derails my train of listening every friggin' time I hear it, I have put a bit of thought into this new cultural artifact. It, as well as "like," are hand-me-ups from the vocabulary of early-teenage girls. "Yanno" slithers out at just the part of an argument when the point is about to be made. Like this: The ghost of his father orders Hamlet to revenge his murder so then Hamlet, yanno. After a big shark eats lots of people, and almost eats the hero, he gets his boat and gun and, yanno. One of the only two people left on the starship chasing the aliens is marooned in vacuum by the ship's computer and then, yanno. [think Sam Kennison:] aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh aaaaaaagh aaaaaaaaaaagh *ahem* Which leads me to this theory: the payoff of using "Yanno" is the avoidance of responsibility for the conclusion being drawn. Correlates with the teenage origins of the verbal artifact. Correlates with the most common time of use. What else could it be? Yanno?

1. I think it is traceable to the same cause as “like” in godawful-teenspeak:  it marks the boundary between stereotyped phrases that are pulled up out of memory, so it’s just a “cycling” device to give them more time.  Speech is not planned but simply uttered.

   Posted by  on  02/12/04  at  11:16 AM

2. Blurt for yourself, Mister!

   And whatever happened to the good old classic, “umm?!?”

   Posted by Claire  on  02/12/04  at  11:29 AM

3. And whatever happened to the good old classic, “umm?!?"

   It IS good old classic ‘Ummm’ --in a new*improved version-- well, maybe new-classic.  Same thing.

   Posted by  on  02/12/04  at  12:56 PM

4. I beg to differ.  In fact, I insist on it.

   “Umm” is a placeholder—a verbal zero, as t’were.  YANNO, being a slurred form of “you know” carries semantic content as well as invitation to / expectations of agreement.  Or, more clearly, an invitation to “just finish the thought on your own,” the speaker being too uncommitted or too lazy to finish his own thought. ["If I get you to finish this thought on your own, you cannot possibly disagree with me."]

   That is *why* it galls [gauls?] me so.  Extemporaneous speaking often requires a null content placeholder while a thought is being formed.  Filling that dead space with something, instead of null, is just messy, imprecise, distracting from the intended point, annoying and, on top of it all, makes the utterer sound like a incoherent, tounge-tied rube.

   Posted by Claire  on  02/13/04  at  05:05 AM

5. Filling that dead space with something, instead of null, is just messy, imprecise, distracting from the intended point, annoying and, on top of it all, makes the utterer sound like a incoherent, tounge-tied rube.
   

   Can’t disagree with you there, esthetically, it’s rebarbative, but—

   -- insisting that an expression which doesn’t actually have semantic contact actually does have semantic content is . . . self-defeating.  I suggest that there are many more profitable places to put the energy.

   Posted by  on  02/13/04  at  11:38 AM

6. A differing opinion is not an “insistance.” The phrase, “you know” followed by a question mark is the origin of the current “yanno.“ Semantic content est.

   Posted by Claire  on  02/13/04  at  11:59 AM

7. Should I, just for form’s sake, say “‘tis so!” yanno?

   Posted by  on  02/15/04  at  04:18 PM

8. If it makes you feel better ...er, informed . . .

   Posted by Claire  on  02/16/04  at  04:09 AM

9. If it makes you feel better ...er, informed . . .

   Well, it was a matter of form . . .

   Posted by  on  02/17/04  at  10:59 AM

10. and now it’s a matter for formaldehyde . . .

    Posted by Claire  on  02/17/04  at  11:02 AM

11. “and now it’s a matter for formaldehyde . . .”

    Are you saying you’re in a pickle?

    Posted by  on  02/18/04  at  01:08 AM

12. in a pickle?

    Not really in a jam—I’m just well preserved . . .

    Posted by Claire  on  02/18/04  at  04:09 AM

13. “Not really in a jam—I’m just well preserved . . .”

    I see “I jam what I jam.”

    Posted by  on  02/18/04  at  10:47 AM

14. Oh my Jam-achin’ fanny!

    Posted by Claire  on  02/19/04  at  04:36 AM

15. “Oh my Jam-achin’ fanny!”

    Are you saying your jam is ganjam?

    Posted by  on  02/19/04  at  11:43 AM

16. Jam?  Made from ganja?!?  Whaaaaa???

    Posted by Claire  on  02/20/04  at  04:19 AM

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