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Does anyone else know anything about using or not using ( yeah but )? To me it seems that in certain situations yeah but is an appropriate response.
My friend really really disagrees. He says that by saying yeah you are agreeing, then the but contradicts your agreement, putting people on the defensive.
Any and all thoughts are appreciated. Thank you George Shaffer
I tend to agree with RobertB. The "Yeah" or "Yes" preceding "but" is certainly not necessary, and is implied as acknowledgment when you start with "But" or "Although" or "Nonetheless" or "However".
However, in the spoken language, starting with "Yeah, but" or "Yes, but" is so common that you shouldn't be getting corrected for using it. And that construction is NOT at all contradictory, as your friend claims.
In formal writing it should never be used, except possibly when answering the writer's own rhetorical question.
jaimeyeahbut said
My friend really really disagrees. He says that by saying yeah you are agreeing, then the but contradicts your agreement, putting people on the defensive.
Yeah does mean agreement but not necessarily total agreement. But comes along to mention some things that you may disagree about the premise.
I agree that this phrase can be meaningful and useful but I have heard some who look for anything to disagree about and overuse the phrase simply to start an argument. Could your friend be seeing this in you?
I also see it as common and acceptable. The yeah or yes serves to underscore the possible agreement. If agreement is clearly not implied, then the yeah or yes simply concedes the validity of the opposing point. In the case of disagreement it is softer then simply starting with but.
A: I think John was in the wrong.
B: But he was misled by Pat. [adding nuance; yeah, agreement may be implied, but complete disagreement is also possible]
*
B: Yeah, but he was misled by Pat. [adding nuance; agreement is more likely]
===
A: I think we should get gas before we head out.
B: But gas is cheaper if we wait till we're in New Jersey. [no agreement implied; stating an opposing point]
*
B: Yeah, but gas is cheaper if we wait till we're in New Jersey. [yeah affirms speaker A's opinion before making an opposing point.]
Yeah, but I think the yeah adds value.
It recognizes that your opinion is valued, and for the most part correct, before the but qualifies the agreement. It's not starting an argument, it's avoiding one, by stating something that the first speaker was probably thinking, but not stating.
For instance, Einsteinian physics was a "yeah but" to Newtonian physics. Kids are still taught the mathematically-simpler laws of Newtonian mechanics, because they are easier to understand and they;re good enough for everyday situations, but they are warned that under certain conditions, the two sets of equations significantly diverge and Einsteinian mathematics better approximates reality. And today, we know that they are both wrong.
He says it immediately puts the other person on the defensive.I hear it all the time, he says it shouldn't be used and that only ghetto and uneducated people use it.
The person who says this is putting YOU on the defensive, and where's his apology or validation for that?
Yeah [What you say seems to make sense as far as you've taken it], but [perhaps you have neglected to incorporate these other factors] makes perfect sense to me. Your friend may be right that the "Yeah" signals agreement, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum – the "but" phrase qualifies the agreement, it doesn't contradict it. Your friend just wants to have an argument and make it your fault.
No one would ever say I'm ghetto, I'm educated in the field of English, and I use "Yeah, but…" as often as I feel it's useful. Your friend needs to get out more.
It occurs to me that the word ghetto, referring to people, is a rather bigoted term. Uneducated *and* ghetto are the two groups that use that term, he says.
But he'd probably be offended if someone would call him ne kulturny because he doesn't sound like a hillbilly, whose speech most closely resembles the King's English of centuries past.
The word ghetto is itself degenerate English, having been Jewish slums. I had it in my mind that the term originated in Warsaw, but I find that originally it was in Venice, and ghetto comes from the word for foundry, as the jews were segregated onto an industrial blackfield island. And when Elvis recorded his song, I heard lots of whining that ghetto really wasn't where blacks live, and Elvis, a rich and talented hillbilly, but a hillbilly none the less, was illiterate, but Douglas Harper sdays that ghetto was used for black slums back in the 19th century.
Which once again show to me that I'm pretty ignorant. A problem for those of us that know everything is that our knowledge is a mile wide, but barely an inch deep.
Still, branding someone as being your intellectual inferior because of their economic status is foolish. The single greatest cause of poverty in this country is disability, and when a smart person becomes disaqbled, they tend to take advantage of the library as cheap entertainment, and they have too much time on their hands. I've found that they aren't always right, but they're almost always worth listening to, because they are well-read.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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