An interrogative 'yeah' at the end of every other sentence, yeah?

[Bozo Erectus]

I first noticed it from the guy from The Office (the U.S. version is unwatchable btw). Every other sentence ends in 'yeah?'. Then I started hearing it from other people, yeah? Is this a regional affectation, or strictly a London thing? It seems to be the UK equivalent of the U.S. rap cultures 'know what ahm sayin?' Kind of gets annoying after awhile, yeah?

 

[thetrooper]

I like it when my marines promote

Must be annoying. We have a few of these sentence-ending words or phrases here in Norway too. Quite annoying, yes.

 

[JoeM]

It's better than the 'eh?' at the end of every sentence spoken in New Zealand, combinined with the stead increase in pitch it's quite amusing

 

[Bozo Erectus]

The Canadians insert 'Eh' at the end of sentences. Very annoying.

edit: @Joe, they do it in NZ too? I thought that was strictly Canadian.

 

[CruddyLeper]

Plenty of words and phrases like that. I think people put them in to give the brain a chance to come up with something worthwhile. Something my parents pointed out every time I used one.

Other examples - preceding sentences with "At the end of the day..." or "Basically"; ending sentences with;... "you know what I mean?"

 

[Bozo Erectus]

What part of the UK does it come from though? Is it part of the London urban lingo or from some other region in the Uk?

Edit: Cruddy, one that really drives me crazy is when people begin every sentence with 'actually'.

 

[HamaticBabylon]

I think “Innit” as apposed to “isn’t it” is much more annoying bozo, since most inner cities kids use that word a lot!

 

[Bozo Erectus]

HB, yeah that must be a dumbed down version of the 'isnt it' Brits regularly tack on to the end of sentences. 'Isnt it' doesnt bother me though, its sort of charming in a way, isnt it?

 

[Iggy]

What part of the UK does it come from though? Is it part of the London urban lingo or from some other region in the Uk?

I think it is London and the surrounding areas, Essex county in particular.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Ah, thanks Iggy, its good to have that nailed down finally.

 

[The Last Conformist]

They really annoying thing about "innit" is how it replaces not only "isn't it", but also "aren't they" and the like.

 

[jonatas]

It's better than the 'eh?' at the end of every sentence spoken in New Zealand, combinined with the stead increase in pitch it's quite amusing

i knew a girl from New Zealand, but she was always saying "yeah" at the end of every sentence i could never understand her accent though, so i would just say "yeah" back to her it worked well enough

 

[Xen]

i knew a girl from New Zealand, but she was always saying "yeah" at the end of every sentence i could never understand her accent though, so i would just say "yeah" back to her it worked well enough

ohhh, the fun I could have with such a girl!...

 

[De Lorimier]

The Canadians insert 'Eh' at the end of sentences. Very annoying.

edit: @Joe, they do it in NZ too? I thought that was strictly Canadian.

The only Canadians I ever heard using 'Eh' at the end of sentences were doing it for fun, as a silly joke. I never met anyone who actually speaks like this for real, without joking. Not sure where it comes from.

 

[CruddyLeper]

I think it is London and the surrounding areas, Essex county in particular.

Unofficial term for that dialect; estuary English. Although Portsmouth accent is almost identical.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Unofficial term for that dialect; estuary English. Although Portsmouth accent is almost identical.

I dunno if it's "unofficial" - I've seen it in linguistics papers.

 

[Yom]

I'm willing to bet that most languages have similar words or phrases used comparably. "N'est-ce pas," for instance, in French, is tantamount to "innit" or "isn't it" (just 1,000 times less annoying and not really a sign of ignorance). "Right" is less often used in English, but you could consider it analogous.

 

[CruddyLeper]

There is an equally annoying Northern equivalent (usually Yorkshire/Northumberland/Cumbira) - sticking "is it not?" at the end. EXACTLY the same as the French example above.

EDIT: Yom, you're right. Some Germans stick "nicht wahr" at the end of every sentence.

 

[Volum]

The most annoying thing are girls talking about something and suddenly: And i was like, okaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy.

 

[Tomoyo]

It's not as bad as, like, going, like "like", like every other, like, word...