Zompist Bboard Again

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2024 3:54 pm Does anyone else use tag or (which I invariably pronounce as /ər/ [ʁ̩ˤ]) at the end of sentences in English? (I myself use it very frequently without even thinking.) I know that tag oder is very normal in spoken German, and it seems to be pretty similar in meaning. I never see it in written English, even English that is meant to be informal or to reflect everyday speech.

I've seen this on Twitter, with both "or" and "so", and even included it in my syntax book (2018).

It's quite standard to say e.g. "Are we leaving now, or what?" It feels to me like the meaning is the same; the "what" has just been elided.

zompist wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2024 5:17 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2024 3:54 pm Does anyone else use tag or (which I invariably pronounce as /ər/ [ʁ̩ˤ]) at the end of sentences in English? (I myself use it very frequently without even thinking.) I know that tag oder is very normal in spoken German, and it seems to be pretty similar in meaning. I never see it in written English, even English that is meant to be informal or to reflect everyday speech.

I've seen this on Twitter, with both "or" and "so", and even included it my syntax book (2018).

It's quite standard to say e.g. "Are we leaving now, or what?" It feels to me like the meaning is the same; the "what" has just been elided.

Yeah, I use tag so quite a bit as well myself.

zompist wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2024 5:17 pm It's quite standard to say e.g. "Are we leaving now, or what?" It feels to me like the meaning is the same; the "what" has just been elided.

OK, this feels much more familiar to me. A related construction which I use quite a lot is ‘or something’, to indicate (I think) uncertainty.

Interestingly, I use tag or what far less frequently than tag or. It feels like something that someone would write as dialogue rather than what I am personally familiar with IRL.

I use it sometimes, usually trailing off. I tend to use "So," at the beginning of a sentence a lot more, but there's a good amount of overlap of them both being used. Example:

"So, was someone going to eat this, or...?"

linguistcat wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2024 11:43 pm I use it sometimes, usually trailing off. I tend to use "So," at the beginning of a sentence a lot more, but there's a good amount of overlap of them both being used. Example:

"So, was someone going to eat this, or...?"

Ah, good example! This feels much more natural to me.

Over in the British Politics Guide thread in Ephemera, sangi39 just posted

sangi39 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 27, 2024 5:28 amb) Richmond has returned Conservative MPs for over a century with absolute majorities all but twice (relative majorities in 1989 and 1997, with 5% and %20 leads respectively),

Until today, I had thought the terms "absolute majority" and "relative majority" would only be used in German ("absolute Mehrheit" and "relative Mehrheir"), and English used "majority" and "plurality" instead. Could someone clear this up for me?

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Jun 27, 2024 5:34 am Over in the British Politics Guide thread in Ephemera, sangi39 just posted

sangi39 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 27, 2024 5:28 amb) Richmond has returned Conservative MPs for over a century with absolute majorities all but twice (relative majorities in 1989 and 1997, with 5% and %20 leads respectively),

Until today, I had thought the terms "absolute majority" and "relative majority" would only be used in German ("absolute Mehrheit" and "relative Mehrheir"), and English used "majority" and "plurality" instead. Could someone clear this up for me?

I think it might be a UK vs. US (or North American vs. Elsewhere?) thing? "Plurality" seems to be used in the US where "relative majority" (or even just "majority") is used in the UK, and "majority" seems to be used in the US where "absolute majority" is used in the UK

Could definitely be wrong, though. That's just how I've seen the terms used (it's always thrown me that in the UK we say "majority" when we don't mean "more than half" unless we're specifying that we do indeed actually mean "more than half")

Ah, thank you.