What part of “No, Totally” don't you understand? | Hacker News Reader

What part of “No, Totally” don't you understand?

newyorker.com

157 pointsmoopling75 comments

Seems simple enough to me. The "No" is directed at defusing a redundant introductory lecture.

Translate as:

"No, you don't have to explain further, I completely understand"

"No, stop, I've already heard of that and I'm totally onboard with your opinion"

I spend a lot of time being introduced to topics I'm already familiar with, but just nodding politely or saying "yeah" is interpreted as active listening, as "I'd like to hear more" rather than "Yeah, you can stop right there", which is too confrontational to use directly. What's your preferred way of expressing this sentiment, of interrupting someone in order to claim knowledge in their present topic, without indicating hostility or belittling them?

Extending one of the other posts, "No, your assumption is incorrect, I am in fact already familiar with this subject and I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment".

Exactly. I read it as an abbreviated 'no question'

A twist on this is the Irish vernacular I grew up with where one repeats yes/no on a sharp intake of breath. Where I think breathing is some form of social cue for agreement.

Pat: Shure didn't O'Duffy make a right clown of himself in the pub last night

Mick: (breathing in) ehhYeah Yeah yeah, (nod head to one side and wink knowingly) no, he shure did.

The "no" might be short for "I know".

From the article:

> Or maybe—and this is the theory I like best, but can least substantiate—“No, totally” is really a contraction of “I know, totally.” That is linguistically improbable; I know of no instance in the English language where a homophonic slippage of this sort has taken place. But I like the theory anyway, because it captures what is often the semantic intent of “No, totally” with uncanny precision: I understand, and I am fully in accord.

When I say or read no, totally, I don't think "know" in my mind. I think above comments nailed it. It means "no question" or "no need to go on" to me.

As a counterexample, in spanish, we say "No, claro", and we don't have anything similar to "know".

saber/conocer?

Unless I'm missing something?

The crucial point is that "yo sé" couldn't be shortened to "no", in the same way that "I know" can be shortened to "no" (via "I know" -> "know" -> "no").

I think this is the correct explanation. Can someone find a counter-example where "no" is used in the weird way the New Yorker piece is describing, but where it can't be taken to mean "No, you don't have to go on; I know exactly what you're talking about/asking"?

The example given by yathern...

> A: I wasn't sure if you'd like to go to the park - do you want to?

> B: No, totally! Definitely want to go.

...seems to fit.

> Can someone find a counter-example where "no" is used in the weird way the New Yorker piece is describing

I haven't listened to it, but I've heard that this goes into a bunch of different scenarios:

http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2013/0...

Basically every time Tim Ferris talks on his podcast.

I think part of the reasoning behind this type of response is that each response is dealing with a different level of abstraction.

> A: Did you see any birds at the park?

> B: Yeah, no - I didn't see any.

B is first acknowledging the question and it's intent - as well implying that maybe he did look for birds - which then flows into the fact that 'no' - he did not see any.

This can be done with the 'No, totally' example as well.

> A: I wasn't sure if you'd like to go to the park - do you want to?

> B: No, totally! Definitely want to go.

B is first saying 'No' to the implied "You don't want to go.". B is essentially saying 'The assumption you made was wrong - I do indeed want to go'.

Granted, I made these examples to be easy to dissect, and it's likely that from this pattern, it devolved into common vernacular despite being used in this way. But I think it still holds up for most uses.

Your second example is the one I'm most familiar with. I say stuff like that often. It's got nothing to do with all the article's other reasons -- it's usually just because my mind is racing faster than I can speak.

Someone : "I thought you really wanted to use the paintbrush. Did you see the if there were any rollers?"

Me (mental response): "No (I didn't want to use the paintbrush). Yes (I did see the rollers) but they looked bad".

Me (actually said out loud): "No. Yes, but they looked bad"

I agree completely. It looks weird in print, but in when spoken it makes much more sense.

Another example is "No (I don't disagree with you), I do want to do XYZ."

In a context where there is an assumption that conversation is a debate, "No, totally" means "no I am not disagreeing with you, you are totally right."

The different possible origins of this phrase are interesting. The article mentions a couple, and there's some in the comments here.

I've always seen it as I'm saying "no" to alleviate any doubt the other person had that I did not agree with their statement.

The conversation might go: A. I really think "OK Computer" is the best Radiohead album. B. No, totally!

But the implication is more like: A. I think "OK Computer" is the best Radiohead album. Am I crazy for not picking "Kid A" or "In Rainbows?" B. No, I don't think you're crazy for liking "OK Computer" the best. I totally agree with you.

Does anybody else see it this way? (Please respond with "No, totally!" (It's okay if you don't like "OK Computer"))

I agree with this. in the lena DUNHAM case she seems to be affirming maron's assumptions. The question implies that if you don't agree with me I have totally misunderstood you as a person. If she replied with yeah, ok(or any other negative word), she would be communicating her new knowledge of marons inability to relate and the either dismissing the statement or rejecting it. Much conversation is to relate as apposed to communicating specific ideas. on a slight tangent that new usage of random to mean unexpected is more actually meant to me of all the actions I've seen you take I would not have predicted this on.

No, English is messed up :P

I learned about some of this from learning Japanese where I had to learn you answer the question directly rather than confirm the negative by repeating it.

In Japanese:

Q: You don't like cigars do you

A: Yes (Yes I don't like cigars)

In English

Q: You don't like cigars do you

A: No (it's effectively confirming the negative of "like")

My Japanese friends learning English of course found English very confusing. I'd point out if you answer the question with more than just "Yes" or "No" it's almost always clear.

A: Yes, I don't like cigars

A: No, I don't like cigars

Both have the same meaning, whereas just Yes or just No is ambiguous.

Of course the article had examples of just yes or just no. To someone of the same language background they are probably unambigious

Your question is the part that is messed up. An ambiguous question leads to ambiguous answers, not the other way around.

"Is it true you don't like cigars?" Yes, I don't like cigars. "Do you like cigars?" No, I don't like cigars.

In either properly formed question, the answer will always be "no", if you really don't like cigars.

Unfortunately, the way sentences are constructed in English this is a common way to phrase a question.

"Is it true you don't like cigars?" is a completely different question from "Do you like cigars?". The first question implies the asker has been given prior knowledge that they are looking to confirm. In some cases, the asker might already know with certainty that they don't like cigars, but they're looking to bring up the subject of cigars and that's their icebreaker. There's a lot of hidden information in that one short sentence.

It's a poorly constructed question yes, but the straightforward alternative isn't always a good alternative because that poorly constructed question isn't actually a question, It's a statement dressed up like a question for the sake of subtlety. So in actuality, the responder shouldn't answer yes or no. That's not the correct response to a statement. If the subtlety is lost on the responder even momentarily, they may answer yes or no, in the same manner that when someone says "happy birthday", I might mistakenly answer the same thing back to them as if they had wished me a good afternoon.

If someone says "Is it true you don't like cigars", the correct response is not "no", it's "that's correct".

I like the way Mandarin does this. There's no pure "yes" or "no," just a negation you can apply to a verb. The answers would be either "like" (yes, I like cigars) or "not like" (no, I don't like them).

Does this work for questions phrased in the negative? Ni bu hui shuo zhongwen ma? (You can't speak Chinese?) could be responded to with "bu hui", "hui", or "dui" I think. "Dui" (correct) would mean... Right, I cant? "Dui bu dui" is also an interesting departure for this...

Yes, it also works for questions phrased in the negative, and 对/不对 (dui / bu dui) ("that's right"/"that's not right") does not make any sense as a response to that question, you need to use 会/不会 (hui/ bu hui) ("I can"/"I can't"). It's all very explicit compared to most languages.

But another, perhaps more natural way of negatively phrasing the question would be "你不会说中文，是吗？" or "你不会说中文，对吗？" or even the odd formulation that you mention "你不会说中文，对不对？" (You don't speak Chinese, right?), in which case you could respond with 对/不对 ("that's right"/"that's not right").

It's too late to edit, but I now realize that what I wrote is pretty confusing. Especially the part with "You don't speak Chinese, right?" which should be between quotes. It's the translation of the previous sentence, not something that I'm actually asking... And I should add that I don't speak Mandarin fluently, but I'm still confident about the above.

I studied Chinese in college for a few years. Everything you wrote is correct.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression native Japanese speakers tended to be averse to giving a direct "no" as an answer anyway.

In which case "You're quite correct, I prefer not to smoke cigars" should work just as well as its closest Japanese equivalent.

As I've gotten older, and more direct with my speech, I find myself just repeating the second part of the yes/no question as my answer. Maybe it has something to do with the programming that I've been doing or dealing with programmers.

In reality, as someone who grew up talking like that, answering yes to such a question is really awkward and in no way the expected answer.

I think this is cultural lingo though, as you should probably be asking 'do you like cigars', while the negative form of the question shows familiarity, is less formal and leads to a lot of unwritten rules.

In New Zealand we say "yeah, nah", which is sort of a similar thing to this.

We've even got ad campaigns with it now:

http://www.alcohol.org.nz/alcohol-activities-services/campai...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFQzcWkKbbA

In South Africa we say "Ja, Nie" (which translated is "Yes, No" or "Yes and No"). In this case there does happen to be a theory as to where it came from. The story goes that during the Anglo-Boer War[1] when Afrikaaners were captured they would use it as a response during interrogations - an exceptionally defiant phrase. There is no explanation or story for how it entered common use but you do hear it almost on a daily basis.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War

One of my favorite racing drivers was recently interviewed, made this mistake and then immediately mocked himself for doing so, pretty funny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuJ4trSKS-0&feature=youtu.be...

This is great because he says "Yeah, no", notices it, calls himself out for it, and then immediately does it again, and he stops and calls himself out a second time, and then you can see him make a visible effort to omit the "no" the third time around.

I think with "No, Totally" in particular, the "no" is refuting something implied. So with "Makes you want to hit them", you are instinctively saying "no" the cultural prohibition against violence. "No that's not normal behavior, but yeah, totally I want to hit them."

For "Would you like ice cream?" you'd say "Totally" because the connotation is good. "Don't you just want to eat the whole tub of ice cream" -- "no, totally", is a reasonable response because you're resisting the negative connotation of pigging out.

I think this is actually unrelated to the "Yeah, No" phenomenon.

Yes, totally. :) I read the whole article waiting for this explanation to be brought up.

This is pretty crazy analysis for what I see to be a pretty simple phenomenon. Put the truncated "Oh" in front of the "no", in order to indicate emotional sentiment, and you have your simple explanation.

"oh no" = hat tip to an [unexpected] unpleasant feeling

"oh yes" = hat tip to an [unexpected] pleasant feeling

Take the "Did you see any birds at the park?" "yeah, no, I didn't see any" = "Oh yeah, it would have been nice to, but no I didn't see any.

I see this more as "No, you're not taking it far enough. It's even more of that thing you said than how you said it," and less as an auto-antonym.

> At first blush, “no” does not appear to be the kind of word whose meaning you can monkey with. For one thing, there is its length. At just two letters and one syllable, it lacks the pliable properties of longer words. You can’t stuff stuff inside it. [...]

I guess these 'long form' articles have to be long, but some of these paragraphs seem pretty forced.

This article seems particularly bad (I stopped reading halfway through), but a lot of articles published in The New Yorker seems to do this kind of meandering. The other day I was reading a story about Jake Leg[0], and if you compare it to the corresponding Wikipedia article[1] the difference is really striking---the Wikipedia article tells you straight away what caused the contamination, while the New Yorker story somehow tries to keep you in suspense.

I guess I just don't see what these authors are trying to do. If someone started reading an article about "no, yes", probably they want to know about "no, yes". Why intersperse a bunch of unrelated fluff?

[0] http://www.danbaum.com/Nine_Lives/Articles_files/Jake%20Leg,... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaica_ginger

Agreed. I just move along when I see an article trying to play a story out like a movie.

I respectfully disagree. I thought this "no, totally" article was entertaining and enjoyable.

It's strange to me that you're comparing The New Yorker and Wikipedia. One publishes stories. The other publishes reference articles. I appreciate suspense in a story; I appreciate a quick summary of the facts in a reference article. They are very different forms of writing.

It feels almost like there is an implied leading question like: "Am I wrong?"

No, that's exactly right.

Weird, I remember when I was in NZ a few years back "yeah nah..." meant "yes" which confused me. I think Australia had it too, but I'm not sure.

Another semi-related but confusing thing was while I've been living in Czech Republic I visited South Korea. I ended up getting twisted up trying to answer yes\no in Korean because...

English: Yes | No

Czech[1]: No | Ne

Korean: Ye\Ne | Anio

Each language has one that's annoyingly similar to the opposite in at least one different language. Trying to get this right after a few beers is hard.

[1] = "No" is a common contraction of "Ano" but even then that conflicts with Korean "Anio".

Here's another possibility, the first one that occurred to me: the "no" is a rejection of the implicit alternative to what was stated.

The author ends up at a fairly convincing alternative explanation, though.

This is sort of what I've assumed recently. I hear this a lot and it always sounds like there is an implicit "do you disagree?" after the first statement to which the person is responding "no, I agree with you."

I've always wondered how "awful" came to mean "bad" (the opposite of "awe full") and then has apparently added the meaning "very" ("awfully good"?)?

Probably by means of partial understanding. Someone talks about "an awful battle", or "the awful day of judgment", and people (especially children) might understand it as fearsome and potentially very bad, and use the word exclusively in that sense. It's easy to imagine the definition migrating to simply, "very bad".

Words flipping from positive to negative and visa versa is very common in language. Just the other day I was talking to some younger kids about hockey and they were going on about a goal being "filthy" and "Dirty". In my day a dirty goal was one that didn't look nice. To them these goals were so naughty(as in sexy) you wanted to take a shower after seeing them.

Here's some reading http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/15/1284995/-Origins-of...

I don't think this particular case is a new-ish usage; "filthy" has long been popular in baseball to describe a very crafty pitch or pitcher, or "sick" in music for an amazing solo or musician.

This part, though somewhat unrelated to the topic, is pleasantly insightful:

> Saying yes as often as possible is, famously, the first rule of improv, vital to maintaining energy, imagination, and humor. It is also, I have long thought, a sure sign that you’re falling in love, not to mention crucial to sustaining that love over the long haul. And, while sometimes impractical, dangerous, or just plain dumb, saying yes to as much stuff as possible is, over all, a pretty good strategy for getting through life.

I didn't know this bit:

'Back when English was a four-form system, it, too, had a si—a word used specifically to contradict negative statements. That word was “yes.” To affirm positive statements, you used “yea”'

(Then continues about the similar no / nay.)

Anyway, I'm surprised the writer did not work in the joke about the lecturer saying:

"As you know, a double negative becomes a positive, but the reverse does not happen."

Voice from the back of the room: "Yeah, yeah ..."

The punchline is "Yeah, right"

It kind of grates on me when someone always answers in the affirmative with 'No, [affirmative]'. It has become more and more common (especially when I speak with people from California).

I think there's combination of forces at play. But I think a big factor is that people are afraid of appearing too agreeable. It would just be way to overt and enthusiastic to just say 'Yeah, totally' for Californian sensibilities.

French has an interesting word which somewhat clarifies this situation: "si" (not the conditional "if" in this case).

For lack of a better explanation, it's essentially a negative "yes", used to negate a negation.

For instance:

  A: "Don't you understand?"
  B: "Si"

Meaning "No, I don't agree with you, but yes, I do understand".

I find it very simple yet quite powerful.

I don't think it actually means ""No, I don't agree with you." I think it's just an unambiguous "Yes, I do" answer to a negated question.

I was mostly trying to emphasize my perception of the meaning as a native french speaker. Not saying this necessarily makes me right, I just wanted to highlight both the negation of the question itself as well as the confirmation of the underlying statement.

The edge case where it is expected that one would not understand a spoken response of "No, totally" is where the thing it was said in response to both was phrased such that a negative answer could be one of absolute agreement and where the previous thing said contained in it the word totally. This case could give the interpretation that while you more or less agree you would like the word totally omitted from your agreement.

Example(leveraged from jasallen's example in another post): Don't you totally want to eat the whole tub of ice cream?

As a spoken response in this edge case "No, totally"(yes I very much want to eat it all) would be indistinguishable from "No totally" (yes I want to eat it all, but I am not as enthusiastic about doing so as you are).

As a non-native English speaker "No, Totally" doesn't sound natural at all to me ("Yes, Totally" sounds better and makes way more sense).

I only understood what the author was really talking about when he introduced other examples (like to dust).

>As a non-native English speaker "No, Totally" doesn't sound natural at all to me

I'm a native English speaker and "No, Totally" doesn't sound at all natural to me either.

Agreed. Even with my British flair for using double negatives for cautious agreement, "no, totally" sounds like a particularly awkward Americanism.

Leah Dunham doesn't seem natural to me.

Made me wish for a comeback of the yeas and nays of yonder. It's pretty amazing how many different languages struggle with this, and how some have tried to deal with it using a 4-tuple instead of a 2-tuple.

I can't say I've noticed this before, which leads me to think it's probably an American colloquialism, but that's my default response to these kinds of things.

Could be that I've just not noticed it.

In Australia, we have "yeah nah yeah", which is a similar phenomenon. I have no idea where it originated. I think "nah yeah nah" may also be prevalent.

It could read as, "No, I was not going there, but since you did, I agree"

The "NO" indicates a mismatch in the train of thought and logical flow, or expected logical flow. So it's noted, communicated, followed by a basic response to the unexpected dialog.

Where the flow is expected, seems like this would be awkward, and just a "totally" would work.

The four-word system (yea, nay, yes, no) is interesting. Might the modern "yeah" be a relic of "yea"?

The following sounds strange to me:

  Shoot, there aren’t any open pubs in Canterbury at this hour.
  Yeah.

But the following sounds just fine:

  Is Chaucer drunk?
  Yeah.

Yeah is indeed from yea, from Old English gea. All three were originally pronounced identically, but yea underwent a sound change so that it now rhymes with yay. Yeah is one of the few words to have retained its Old English pronunciation.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yeah

Reminds me of German 'doch'

"No, you're not crazy" seems to fit the sentiment most closely.

I would blame the French. Frenchmen speaking English badly often say Borat like phrases, for example "its great, no?". It happens when you learn vocabulary without grammar rules.

is that really any different than "Isn't it great?"

The French phrase is "n'est-ce pas?".

What grammar rule is violated? The question "is it not?" Is completely valid English and common with French speakers.

I would literally argue that it's ironic that most English speakers have a bad command of the language. Of course you're experience may be different. The reality is that grammar is often, especially in spoken language, is butchered. It's affect is that many people could care less.

God, I hope that second paragraph is intended to illustrate the irony (or you don't fall in the native speaker category!)

Are we sure we're spelling it right? Is it an abbreviated version of "I know, totally"?

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