Someone just used the phrase "Um ... no." and it struck me as interesting, and I asked myself what it means, and why it sounds disdainful.
I think the "Um ..." part connotes someone thinking about how to say something nicely since it mimics a pause in speech -- it sets up the "no" as a punchline to a little joke: "I tried to think of a reasonable way to disagree, but something was just so wrong that there's no way to sugarcoat it."
It has a real economy of words to it, and it's neat that its meaning comes from spoken cadence and the implied thoughts of the imaginary speaker.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Umm....no.
Labels:
language
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment