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I thought I would share my story of "what did you say?"
I recently moved to northeast Wisconsin from the Chicago area where I was raised. My family and I noticed a few peculiarities in the way the people speak up here. Some examples would be the locals use "bubbler" (water fountain), soda (for a carbonated beverage and not pop), and they pronounce bag – bage (like the first syllable in bagel.) I joke with my family by saying "I beg for a big bag" in Wisconinese.
But I have found that they use "yet" in an odd way. The best example I can think of is from a friend of my daughter who asked her "Are you home yet?" meaning "Are you still home?" and not "Have you already arrived home?" And just the other day my wife and I heard a waitress ask a diner if they "were eating that yet?" versus "are you done with that?" To my very amateur eyes, it appears that they use "yet" in place of "still" and I can"t think of anytime time I could substitute it for "still". Except where there is a contradiction made. For example, "he says he"s been busy all day, yet he hasn"t moved off the couch." Maybe it is because I am extremely tired, but I can"t wrap my head around what they are really saying. Can anyone care to break it down how their usage makes sense? Is it an old usage that they cling to? The town in primarily of Germanic descent.
To me the most natural reading of "Are you eating yet?" is to discover if the action has begun, rather than completed. But, I am quite familiar with the other use of yet. I treat it as informal, somewhat regional. It is not uncommon, in my experience.
The online M-W has this:
2 b : continuously up to the present or a specified time : still (is yet a new country)
This definition could include the uses you describe, although I do not consider these uses part of formal, common English.
I'm originally from that area myself—sort of, back when I was a child, not there exactly but nearby—but this one I missed. I've never heard of it being done in English. But for what it's worth, I think it does make sense based on older meanings of "yet" and how the word is used in other languages.
"Yet" often translates into encore in French. But there it is also used to mean things that I would translate "still", "again" and "always". (Never "but", though.)
In Spanish ... Well, perhaps my Spanish isn't good enough to pontificate. I know that todavia no means "not yet", but I'm not sure how else todavia might be used. Better forget that one. Instead, let me see whether we can tease out the common meaning of all the ways we use "yet" in English:
1) An adverb asking whether an expected event or condition has occurred or is still in the future. Are you up yet? Have they cashed that check yet? I never noticed before, but this use is always interrogative; it's never used in declarative sentences except in ironic response to the question. "Are we there yet?" "Yes, we're there yet."
Wait, that's not right either; it's always either interrogative or negative. "I'm not through watching TV yet" works fine, though I would never say "I'm through watching TV yet." Hmm, that is like Spanish; for "not yet" they say todavia no, but for "yes yet" (so to speak) they say ya; ya terminé, for example, "I'm through". This leads me to think about the relationship between "yet" and "now", for I would say "I'm through now" but "I'm not through yet". Hm...
2) As an adverb meaning a condition is still in effect: "He was last seen up on the Wasatch, and they say he's up there yet." "I believed it as a child and I believe it yet." It's a little older, but it's still understood well enough, especially in old novels and dramatic writing. This is the sense in which your friend's daughter asked "Are you home yet?", and the waitress whether the diner was "eating that yet", though in most parts of the country the questions would be taken to mean "have you arrived home?" and "have you started eating that?". I don't think you could ever use this with the negative without confusion: "I'm not yet eating that" would never sound to my ear like "I'm through with it now", no matter how carefully the context prepared it. Tvieno, here's a question: Is there a slight emphasis when one of your neighbors uses "yet" in this way? When we say "I'm not through yet", the last word gets no emphasis; when I say "I believe it yet", it's almost the dominant word in the sentence, in terms of pitch. Can you hear any such emphasis in the waitress' voice when she asks "are you eating that yet?"?
3) As a conjunction meaning (roughly) "but" or "nevertheless" or "still" (in the sense of "nevertheless"): I wasn't hungry, yet I thought it best to eat something.
I thought there were more, but I've forgotten whatever they were. Can anyone add any to the list?
Glenn, I agree with that definition as well. The locals here, to use that example given by M-W, would say something like, "South Sudan is a new country yet." meaning "South Sudan is still a new country."
Bob Bridges said:
2) As an adverb meaning a condition is still in effect: "He was last seen up on the Wasatch, and they say he's up there yet." "I believed it as a child and I believe it yet." It's a little older, but it's still understood well enough, especially in old novels and dramatic writing. This is the sense in which your friend's daughter asked "Are you home yet?", and the waitress whether the diner was "eating that yet", though in most parts of the country the questions would be taken to mean "have you arrived home?" and "have you started eating that?". I don't think you could ever use this with the negative without confusion: "I'm not yet eating that" would never sound to my ear like "I'm through with it now", no matter how carefully the context prepared it. Tvieno, here's a question: Is there a slight emphasis when one of your neighbors uses "yet" in this way? When we say "I'm not through yet", the last word gets no emphasis; when I say "I believe it yet", it's almost the dominant word in the sentence, in terms of pitch. Can you hear any such emphasis in the waitress' voice when she asks "are you eating that yet?"?
No, there was no added emphasis of yet in the sentences spoken. Nor was there any interrogation with a negative pretext. When she asked if they "were eating that yet?" it was no different than I have heard other servers from other regions asking if they "were still eating that."
I agree with your earlier statement about confusion with the lack of a negative connotation, which is why I am bringing it up here; it"s just plain confusing when you first hear it.
I have a very similar situation with a different word. When I was in Jr. High I went to a summer camp that attracted people from various parts of Texas. (I am from Fort Worth) One day, while swimming in the lake with some friends from far west Texas, there were horseflies all around us. Someone said, "Why are they called 'horseflies'?" One of my west Texas friends said, "Because they're about horses." The word "about" seemed out of place until I realized he was using a different meaning than the one I immediately thought of. To me "about" means "pertaining to." He was using "about" to mean "around." Both are proper but the second one is not a way I usually use the word.
And here's another one. A friend of mine (who grew up in Texas) often uses the word "anymore" in a similarly (at first confusing to me) manner. Example: Anymore, it's getting hard to find gas for less than $3 a gallon. The meaning "these days" or "at this point" is clear to me, but I had never heard "anymore" used like that. It would seem to make more sense to put the "anymore" at the end of that sentence, but even that doesn't sound quite right.
Could be a regional thing. Never heard that usage when I was living in the Midwest.
I grew up in the Midwest, too, but when I moved to NC I heard the same usage, first from my mother-in-law, I think. To my northern ear it sounds wrong because "any" has limited uses, and in the adverbial phrase "any more" it's strictly negative: You can say "you can't find gas for less than $3/gal any more", but not "it's hard to find gas for less than $3/gal any more". I had to get used to it; I may correct my children, but not my mother-in-law. As a result I've sort of gotten used to it; I don't use it myself but it no longer grates on my ear.
Not like I've ever seen "anymore" used that way (as the first word) in print, but I think that, as two words, which Bob cites, the meaning is slightly different. As two words, I read the meaning as "something additional." Example: You can't have any more candy.
As far as the negative vs. positive connotations, The Free Online Dictionary agrees: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/anymore
True, since moving to Arizona, I've gotten used to it. But when I write or speak it, the "anymore" comes at the end of the sentence.
Actually it's only recently that I began to allow "anymore" as a single word in any sense. I still prefer to write "I don't think I can do that any more" (not "anymore"), but I've at least started to accept it from those I proofread for. And of course I agree that "You can't have anymore candy" is just plain wrong.
Martha Barnette
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