I Know, Right?!

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Julie.

Hi, Julie, where are you calling from?

Pasadena.

How can we help you, Julie?

Well, a few months ago I was at a family reunion and I was enjoying listening to my 20-something-year-old daughters and nieces talking. I love to listen to the young people talk. That makes me sound like an old fogey, but anyway.

I know the feeling.

And the expression that I get a big kick out of is, I know, right? And I stopped them, and I said, I love that expression. It conveys so much. It has to do with, you know, I hear what you’re saying. I understand. Do you understand what I’m saying? And I started wondering how that works in conversation.

And then just this last weekend, I noticed it is, at least in a different part of the country, it’s truncated. Now it’s just right with that uplift. Not like the ums and the errs, the discourse particles that you talked about some time ago. It seems to fill the same need as other words that we’ve used in the past, like, you know, and for sure.

Correct, but it’s in the form of a question, right?

It seems to be. Like, you know is. You know is often in the form of, like, you know? You know. You know, -huh.

Yeah, but it’s the other person saying it. It’s like you say something and then the other person says right. But by right, they mean you’re right. I agree with you.

Yes, yes. We are on the same page. It’s a little more than that. It’s not just that it’s a mirroring of the other person’s feelings or what they’ve said. It’s agreeing with them and it’s throwing the conversation back to them so that you are not taking control of the discourse. I mean, you’re doing the other speaker a favor by agreeing, affirming what they’re saying, and then letting them, you know, keep the speaking position.

Usually. Sometimes you go off into how you know right.

Okay, yeah. But it’s weird because if you picture it, it ends with a question mark, but it’s a statement.

It is. It seems to be more exclamatory.

Yeah, I don’t know how long it’s been around, but I will tell you that I’ve only noticed it in the last year and more among younger folks.

Exactly. Rather than older. As I said to my cousins, I really think it’s a lot like, you had a show on American Sign Language a while ago. And there’s a sign which means really or honestly, certainly. And I think the same sign would be used for this expression of being in agreement or emphasis.

Wait, so the ASL sign doesn’t cast doubt?

Because this, I know, right, doesn’t cast doubt. It’s total agreement.

Exactly. It doesn’t cast doubt.

Okay. It’s agreement and emphasis.

Okay. Well, it’s been around long enough that there are entries on Urban Dictionary. There are Facebook groups that have come out against it. Apparently this is something that raises ire. It’s a thing.

I don’t understand why it raises ire. I do know that some people are afraid of the new. Perhaps that’s it. It holds a firm lexical position of affirming something that’s been said. And we have a lot of those things in conversation and in dialogue where we let the other person know that we heard them. We might let them know that we agree with them. We do, huh, yeah, right, really, oh. We’ve got all these things that we say.

Indeed. We have to indicate that we’re paying attention to the speaker. If you want more information about this, this has been discussed in a couple of places online. Look on Language Log. These great linguists, these friends that we know, they really just get into the meat of this and have a lot of commentary from a variety of sources. And there was a pretty good discussion on AskMetafilter.com, which is a great place where people ask questions and the community at large answers. Just can find more perspectives on this, including the Carpers, but also the people who say, like, I say it and I think it’s useful.

Julie, thanks so much for your call.

Oh, you’re welcome.

All right. Take care now.

Bye, Julie.

Bye-bye.

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