Wyn Drabble: Study concludes 'eh' is just a noise

I say "aye" means "yes" as in, "Aye, aye, captain."

English is a living, evolving language. It's difficult but we can accept that fact on the one hand and shudder at the results on the other. The choice is ours.
This week I read that an Australian-based German academic, Martin Schweinberger, has completed the biggest ever study of New Zealanders' use of the word "eh".

That's really mixing it up culturally, eh? Perhaps a more appropriate topic would have been the cooking of German sausages on Australian barbecues.

I was pleased to see that the article's writer dismissed the alternative spellings, "ay", "aye" and "ae". I would say the word is used more in oral rather than written situations so I remember being quite surprised when I first saw it written as "aye".

Wyn Drabble

I say "aye" means "yes" as in, "Aye, aye, captain." Same for "ay". So, to me, those versions look silly as "eh" in written form. As for "ae", all I can say is eh?

The article said that "eh" was "just a noise that we plonk at the end of a sentence". Surely it has to be more than that. There has to be a reason for it.

Maybe it's like tacking "Right?" on to the end of a statement as if seeking some sort of agreement. After all, the French often tack "Oui?" or "Non?" on to the end of their sentences. But then again they also eat snails.

Or maybe there doesn't have to be a reason for it. The ubiquitous unfinished simile ("sweet as", for example) and the contradictory "yeah, nah" appear to lack explanations but have still cemented places in our vernacular.

I can't say whether the study has helped the world much. But I can say that, if I had been the German and there had been a choice, I would have gone with the sausage study.

A week earlier I read a report about why people misuse the word "literally" so often. Literally every day I hear people saying it and it literally puzzles – even annoys – me.

Yes, it can have a valid use and meaning but not when it's literally in every sentence.

The article pointed out the humour in overusing "figuratively" in a similar way. It's not commonly done but wouldn't it be fun! I am figuratively bowled over at the very thought of it.

And a lot of people of my age are literally – no I mean figuratively – bowled over when they hear the young using "like" in a way they never did in their youth. The most outrageous they got was probably, "I like The Rolling Stones".

There are more. "You know" has been around for, like, yonks as has "so" to begin a sentence. "I mean" is an unnecessary phrase commonly used, I guess, as a filler and "kind of" is probably much the same. Perhaps they are seen as more eloquent versions of "um".

"The reason being is that..." still puzzles me but not as much as the doubled-up version, as in, "My point is, is that..." or "The reason is, is that we just don't feel like it." It really is quite common.

I have it on excellent authority that, on Saturday's BGT final, Simon Cowell said to a contestant, "The reason you're here is, is..."

I found one online explanation which said it's because people deliver their thoughts in chunks. The writer called "The reason is" a single chunk which gives time to think about what is to follow. When the person says "is" again, they are on the point of working out what it is they want to say next. In other words, it buys time.

It's also silly.

When I read this explanation I was like, whatever, literally, eh? Or was that figuratively?

Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.