Yeah, No

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Jade from San Diego.

Hi, Jade. What’s cooking?

Well, I have this friend who’s a surf writer, editor for Surf Magazine, and he picks up a lot of slang in his travels. And I noticed this phrase he was using, this word, and it kind of started to disturb me. So I was going to give you kind of the setup. Basically, I asked him, so I guess you’re pretty psyched to be surfing in Bali next month. And he goes, yeah, no, we will be pretty stoked if our plane doesn’t crash. And then a little while later, I heard something from my wife, kind of the same thing. And so I said something like, hey, are we bringing steak to the barbecue at the Smith’s tonight? And she goes, yeah, no, we are not spending $50 to celebrate the birthday of their Labradoodle. So I don’t know where to go with yeah, no.

Yeah, no. Let me ask you, does your surfer friend hang out with a lot of Australians?

Actually, yes. I would say that he’s in contact with the Aussies quite a bit, and definitely their lingo seeps into our conversations a lot. We all surf. Martha, this is an interesting question.

Yeah, no, you’ve heard this before, right?

Yeah, no, I have. Jade, you’re not the only person who’s noticed that, and it’s interesting that you bring up the Australians because there has been some research by Australian linguists on how often that seems to be used in Australia.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah. And I don’t think that linguists have quite sorted out exactly how it works or the logic of it, except that, yeah, no, they identify this expression as a discourse marker or a discourse particle, if that makes you feel any better.

Okay. Well, it’s interesting that you say that you can’t, that it bothers you, because it’s one of these things that doesn’t really have a grammatical function, but I think it works within conversation. I think people who are having a conversation, it still makes sense to them, right?

Right. It’s kind of like they’re being polite, and if you ask a question that kind of has a yes affirmation response place, then the yeah kind of fits, and then the no, or they might disagree. Or they have something that’s kind of negative or contrary right after. So it’s kind of a shortcut.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s sort of a softening, a way of being nice and then disagreeing sometimes.

That’s exactly the point. There’s a certain face-saving happening there. Certainly if there’s a power dynamic difference between the two speakers, for example, if one knows more than another, the yeah and no can kind of take the sting out of a very harsh kind of no, you’re wrong or yes, I’m absolutely right. And so sometimes it’s about there’s two things happening there. They’re answering a question that is specifically and explicitly asked, and they’re answering a question that’s unspoken or is only implied. And so this is kind of the reason why the yeah and no work well together.

Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Now, you don’t think it has anything to do with, I guess, the Wisconsinian, you know?

No, no, I think they’re different. You will find, and as Martha mentioned, and we were talking about the Australians do this, the South Africans actually have a longer form. It’s so common there was even a TV show by the name, Ya Well No Fine.

Oh, pretty funny.

Yeah, but you’ll find this in all of the Englishes spoken natively around the world. There’s some variation of these kind of, and it only seems like an oxymoron because you’re trying to break it down to its component parts, the yes and the no, the ya no. But if you treat ya no kind of as its own one item, then it begins to make a little more sense. There is something else happening there.

Well, I appreciate you clarifying that for me.

I hope we have clarified. Just to summarize, it’s got a role here. When you hear it, I always say, people, when you hear something that kind of annoys you, instead turn into a field worker, a researcher. Listen and see if you can figure out what its function is because there is one. It’s not junk. It’s not a throwaway expression. It actually has a purpose.

Very cool.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Thank you for calling, Jade.

Thank you, Jade.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Now if people aren’t aware of that, they’re going to be… They’re all going to be like, oh, my God, why did they have to say that? Now I’m going to find it everywhere.

Well, if you’ve got a question about something your friend said that just sounded wrong, give us a call. 1-877-929-9673. That’s 1-877-W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.