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Didn't I, revs per minute and so I was like...

Posted by The Fallen on January 09, 2002

In Reply to: Innit? posted by Word Camel on January 08, 2002

: Does any one know where the peculiar practice in some parts of London of adding a rhetorical question to the end of a statement originates? For example, "I went down the pub, didn't I?"

: As an aside, I have a friend from New Zealand who spent her first months in London politely asking "Did you?", every time!

Despite being a Londoner and therefore well aware of the above, I have no idea why it has come about. Similar is the usage of "and so I turned to him and said... and so he turned to me and said" when verbally recounting a dialogue, which gives the impression that both speakers are permanently spinning at a reasonably high rate of revolutions per minute.

Equally as strange is the more recent US practice of "and so I was like..." to mean "and so I said..." I'd be interested also in knowing when/where this came about.

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