It was never needed in the past and ads no context that a simple exclamation point or bold letters could do if a person wants to add emphasis.
It was never needed in the past and ads no context that a simple exclamation point or bold letters could do if a person wants to add emphasis.
@lvxferre there’s an old trend in New Zealand and Australia to put “but” at the end of a sentence too, but.
I catch myself doing that when speaking, and it always makes me feel stupid. It’s like the speaking part of the brain is waiting for the thinking part to add a counter-point, but the thinking part is just like “sorry, I got nothing”.
That’s interesting.
It might be a parallel development to address the same issue. It isn’t like people incorrectly interpreting what others say is a new thing.
Another possibility is that, initially, the “but” came as an afterthought, to highlight the contradiction. Then in Oz+Kiwi English it became frequent enough to be conventionalised. Like (reusing my example from the earlier comment):
A third possibility would be that that “but” initially implied something that got clipped for succinctness. I find it a bit unlikely due to your example, but I’ve seen people doing it with Portuguese “mas” (but):
@lvxferre because of the intonation, I think it’s likely the first one. It’s often used in a semi-humorous way.
Eg. “Charlene’s prettier than Stacey. Stacey’s dad owns a brewery, but.”
The Welsh do that too, but. And the Irish do something similar, so.