Is there a linguistic term for putting "uh" at the ends of sentences?

December 19, 2024 10:13 PM

Recently, I've been watching a lot of police bodycam videos, and I've noticed a tendency among upset young people to put "uh" at the end of the last word in I sentence. For example, "I was just there" becomes "I was just there-uh" and "There's no reason" becomes "There's no reason-uh." I don't know if young people also do it when they're not upset or only when they're upset. Is there a specific linguistic term for this habit? For example, making a declarative statement with a rising tone that makes it sound like a question is "uptalk," and a crackling voice is called "vocal fry." So do linguists have a word for this "-uh"? Also, I feel like it's a relatively phenomenon. Does anyone know roughly where it started, where it came from, etc?
posted by Bugbread to Writing & Language (8 answers total)

Eh (NZ English) may have a similar function.

Also The Discourse Particle eh in New Zealand English [author's w3 pdf], citations look very useful too.
posted by unearthed at 10:39 PM on December 19

The general linguistic term for adding a vowel sound at the end of a word is paragoge. Some similar questions on r/linguistics and r/asklinguistics (1, 2, there are others) link to a linguistics podcast that calls it an "exclamatory syllable" and contain anecdotes of this happening in various non-English languages too, but that seems to be about it. Personally, I associate it most with Disney Channel teen actors circa mid-2000s, but that's probably a byproduct of my own age and media diet...
posted by btfreek at 10:46 PM on December 19

btfreek, that's it! And, yeah, listening to the podcasts linked in those threads, with clips of it being used in non-upset, non-arrest situations, I realize I've heard it before, it just didn't stand out as much. "Exclamatory syllable" Thanks!
posted by Bugbread at 10:56 PM on December 19

...that's it! And, yeah, listening to...

I first heard of these many, many years ago during discussions among people who were complaining about young people's lamentable tendency to interject the word "yeah" into their speech. It was pointed out that this was an American tendency - but that Canadians of all ages would say "eh" at the end of their statements. So if a Canadian said, "It's a cold day, eh!", an American would say, "It's a cold day, yeah," and a Midwesterner would say, "It's a cold day, yah," and a Southerner would say, "It's a cold day, y'all, bless your heart." (jk)

Vowel shift is constant and pervasive. That syllable we exhale on changes its tone and intonation a little bit according to culture and stress. It may be more plosive of we are excited and confident and hesitant if we are anxious. That 'uh' you are hearing may have been an "um" back a couple of decades ago, and then it sounded so natural to you that you never registered it, while the natural evolution of language during your life time is now making it stand out.
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:45 AM on December 20

This is just to say that I have overheard the exact same pattern among Bay Area children in 5th grade and below at a school near me that I walk past when I go for coffee.

…so it’s an ongoing thing, not only in older youth.
posted by aramaic at 6:41 AM on December 20

In Canada that's a "narrative eh" and like uptalk, it gets interpreted differently by outsiders vs insiders. In Canada the 'eh' is seen by outsiders as seeking the listeners confirmation or approval, which may gets interpreted by the outside as a lack of self-confidence in the speaker. However, in my lived experience in western Canada it is more of a social hook, used by everybody but especially by instructors, teachers or others in authority explaining something, like my childhood doctor.

Japan also has a "narrative ne" that apparently gets coded as 'feminine', which I would guess, because **waves hands around at everything** is seen negatively.
posted by zenon at 8:37 AM on December 20

To be clear - the Canadian 'eh' has many roles, like serving as a hesitation marker instead of 'um' but it is also as an indicator that a particular point or thought was complete, and the listener may interject or prepare for the next point.
posted by zenon at 8:43 AM on December 20

John McWhorter addressed this exactly:

Have you noticed people adding an extra syllable to words—“room-uh,” “man-uh” and “babe-uh”? That’s an exclamatory syllable, and John McWhorter knows where it comes from.

Link to the podcast episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/slate-debates/id500673866?i=1000405113058
posted by sonofsnark at 10:01 AM on December 20