An eternal pet peeve for me has been how some folks will double up the word "is", a rising drawn-out one followed by a regular one, like:
My opinion EESS-is that .....
The issue EESS-is that .......
I feel like the person is trying to pull a cheap trick to sound self-important or to dominate the conversation. And I never hear "are-are" or "was-was" so it's as though they take greater effort to pronounce and those folks are just too lazy to expend the extra effort.
Am I right to feel annoyed by EESS-is, or is it just me and EESS-is is actually legitimate or even profound in some way?
Bugs me too, and I hear that mostly in informal conversation. My take is that it's more a "placeholder," sorta like predicating a comment with "ahhh" or "ummm" that just buys the speaker a little time between when he gets your attention and has to actually say something meaningful.
I hear it, too. It seems like some people have coded the phrase "the problem is" or "the issue is" into one unbreakable unit in their mind. The phrase "the problem is…" comes out with their mind on autopilot. Then they think about what to say next and say, "is that we…". And they don't notice the double "is" themselves, because the two parts of the sentence were two different thoughts for them.
As with all language I'm frequently exposed to, I have to fight to not pick it up myself. I beat this one by pausing before the first "is". "The problem (pause) is that…"
Your takes sound right, and you help me to empathize with folks and to not get so riled up. Both the "space holder" concept and the "code" concept must be at work in most instances. In many instances though, there seems to be an underlying sloppiness that is deliberate, the same kind that underlies "nukewler" or "irregardless". Thanks.
Welcome.
It seems we have discussed this before, but I can't find the thread.
While I agree that I have never heard "was was," I know I have occasionally heard "The problem was is that ... "