Sometimes, we end a sentence with words like right, isn’t it, aint it, etc to imply a question. Such sentences are usually declarative or imperative, followed by a short interrogative tag at the end.
You’re not gonna eat that pizza all by yourself, right?
You said you would come to office topless if Manchester United couldn’t beat Arsenal, didn’t you?
i lungtat hi chu a par ve ngailo, tiraw?
Another word we regularly use to end a sentence with a question here in India, is the word "no". You understand what I’m saying, no? And I have read a couple of articles where people said the reason why the colloquial usage of the word "no" is so popular here is because of the Hindi word "na". You’re coming to the wedding reception, na?, He is "shifting" to his new apartment next week, na? After all, we are like this only, no?
In other countries, people use "yes" instead of "no" (Arsenal will win the title this year, yes?), and some people mentioned that using the word "yes" is a way of "driving the reply you seek towards the way you want", while others stated that this type of tag question (or tail question) is more commonly used in Germanic languages and Romance languages like French and Spanish.
Now I am not a grammar or language expert, and I don’t really know much about its history or correct grammatical structure, but what I do know is that I really like it when people end a sentence with the tag question "Yes". Especially if the person saying that is Eastern European or Russian. There’s something about it… Its sounds so beautiful and soothing, and there’s that… air of confidence around the person saying it.
Like for example, this weekend, I was watching the complete season of "Agent X", in which John Case (Jeff Hephner) and the beautiful Olga Petrovka travelled to Chechnya to recover stolen nuclear warheads. Olga had arranged some people to meet them, and when they turned up, she took them all out. When John asked her why she did that, she replied calmly -
See? So confident and smooth :)
Now if you haven’t watched "Agent X", I really recommend you do. It however has a bad rating on IMDB and I think that is mainly because people couldn’t accept the plotline that the Vice President had his/her own special Agent who seemed to be so much superior and powerful than the CIA, FBI, NSA, Secret Service or even Black Ops Special Forces. Oh comon, it’s just a TV Show.
Also, Sharon Stone :) Daymmm she had aged quite a lot. Still feels like yesterday when I saw her famous legs crossover scene from "Basic Instinct". First, Tea Leoni from "Bad Boys" returned as the 50-year old mother of three and Secretary of State in "Madam Secretary", and now Sharon Stone as the Vice President with a secret responsibility of commanding Agent X. All my childhood crush hotties are now returning as an authoritative and dominating boss. My fantasy is becoming a reality, yes? :D
Coming back to the topic, another TV Show I really love and where a lot of cast members used the question tag "Yes" at the end of their script is "Marco Polo". This is another show I definitely recommend you watch. It’s about the story of Marco Polo who became a subject in the court of Kublai Khan, the fifth Khagan (Great Khan) of the Mongol Empire and grandson of Genghis Khan.
Here are the many examples taken from the show -
Sweet! See how cool they all sound, yes?
So from today onward, I too am going to start talking like this, yes?
It’s gonna be so much fun, yes?
Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams, yes?
All your base are belong to us, yes?
Grab them by the pussy, yes?
The demonetization is causing the common man a lot of hardship, yes?
Never say yes to drugs, yes?
Ok this is starting to sound ridiculous, yes?
I’ll see you all on my next blog post, yes?
Cheers… yes?
No comments:
Post a Comment