# Tag statement: He's a strange fellow, is John - and he's clever too, so he is.



## LV4-26

Hello friends,

I've seen that structure once or twice. The overall meaning is clear but my question is about usage and concerns the fact of adding that type of "tag" at the end of the sentence [auxiliary (or be) + subject].

That one above, I made up. But here's a genuine one found in a book. (I just changed the guy's name).
He knows rude signs in all European languages, *does* Tim.

I'm sure I've seen another example in _Christmas Carol_ by Dickens but I couldn't manage to retrieve it.

I'd like to gather all the information you can provide me with about that type of construction which sounds very "British idiomatic" to me.
- Language. Only BE? AE as well?
- Register. Popular? 
- Times. Still widely used?
- Psychology. Does it denote a specific attitude to the subject? (affectionate, mocking,...)
- ...anything worth noting....

Any input appreciated
Jean-Michel

EDIT : I take it the subject at the end is always a person's name (first name or surname). Am I right?


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## badgrammar

I am more familiar with a different variant, which goes like this:

"Tim knows lots of rude gestures, he does."
"She's got a nice caboose on 'er, she does."

It sounds British to me.  In the above formula and in yours, I think it can be a personal pronoun that replaces a person's name.


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## cuchuflete

I am familiar with this kind of construction in both AE and BE.  It's not much used today, in AE speech, but can be found frequently in written dialogue from the 19th and early 20th centuries.  The register is generally colloquial, rather than formal or literary.


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## panjandrum

The original example is familiar.
_He knows rude signs in all European languages, *does* Tim._
So is a slight variant:
_He's a bright boy, Tim._
This variant only works with short statements.  I couldn't leave out _does_ in LV's example.

I think both of these can only be used if we are already talking about Tim or about something that directly ties in with Tim.  I mean we could be talking about a piece of work that Tim did, without actually mentioning him by name.  Then one of us could say, _"He's a good worker, is Tim."_ (_is_ is optional)

Commonly used in conversation - not only informal.

Still current.  I hear this kind of thing often.

There is no value judgement in the comment itself.  I used positive examples.  I could have equally said:
_He's a bit of a rotten apple, Tim._
_She's a multiple axe-murderer, is Amy._


I need to make small changes to be able to make badgrammar's examples familiar.
_"Tim knows lots of rude gestures, so he does."
"She's got a nice mind caboose on 'er, so she has does."_ 
(we wouldn't refer to caboose here)


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## badgrammar

panjandrum said:
			
		

> I need to make small changes to be able to make badgrammar's examples familiar.
> _"Tim knows lots of rude gestures, so he does."
> "She's got a nice mind caboose on 'er, so she has does."_
> (we wouldn't refer to caboose here)



Well, just one question - why would  you not refer to caboose, if caboose is the, albeit slang, word you wish to employ?  My intention in doing so was to give the sentence a spoken, old-fashioned sound to it, because it isn't the kind of construction you hear very often anymore. Actually, it sounds like something that would have been said in an Irish brogue in an old Hollywood movie !

It sounds strange to me with the "so" in those examples, although I understand you said changes to make it more familiar to you.

When I said caboose, I definitely meant cabose !


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## panjandrum

Caboose is simply not part of the BE vocabulary - in any of its variant meanings.
What's a caboose?
(Rhetorical question)

A more likely local version (delete my facetious "brain" suggestion) would be:
"She's got a nice caboose  arse on 'er, so she does has."

I have difficulty leaving out the _so_.
The affirmative addition ", so he does." is very common here, so it is.


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## se16teddy

panjandrum said:
			
		

> _"Tim knows lots of rude gestures, so he does."_
> _"She's got a nice mind on 'er[/s], so she has does."_


 
To me, these examples including the word 'so' are typical of the speech of people from Ireland.


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## panjandrum

Teddy:
That's no surprise, so it's not 
Would they be BE without the so?


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## sound shift

Geoffrey Boycott, a cricket commentator on English television, uses the construction described by LV4-26. He'll say:

_He moves his feet too late, *does Trescothick*_.

Boycott is from the English county of Yorkshire. I'm sure I have heard other people from Yorkshire use the construction. It may not be confined to Yorkshire, but it is definitely not found all over England.


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## CarolSueC

This construction has interested me too, and I have intended to ask about it.  In my experience it is not generally heard in AE in the positive, only with a negative and usually in a tag-end question.  For example, John is a strange fellow, isn't he?  In this construction with a negative the proper name appears in the main clause, not in the question at the end.  If there are areas where it is used by AE speakers, I wonder if the usage has a long hsitory or may be a recent acqusition, perhaps influenced by contact with Brisith film and TV.


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## panjandrum

I think there are two distinct but closely related topics here.

(1) There's the affirmative tag at the end of the sentence, so there is.
The tag is always redundant.

(2) He's a regular user of the affirmative tag at the end of sentences, is Panj.
The tag is often redundant, but not always.


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## LV4-26

Thanks to all of you.


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## se16teddy

sound shift said:
			
		

> Geoffrey Boycott, a cricket commentator on English television, uses the construction described by LV4-26. He'll say:
> 
> _He moves his feet too late, *does Trescothick*_.
> 
> Boycott is from the English county of Yorkshire. I'm sure I have heard other people from Yorkshire use the construction. It may not be confined to Yorkshire, but it is definitely not found all over England.


 
I think you are right.  In London they are more likely to say 'He moves his feet too late, innit?'.  However, 'does Trescothick' is an affirmation that the preceding phrase is the speaker's opinion; 'innit' rather seeks the support of the person addressed and tends to cast doubt on whether the preceding phrase is the speaker's final opinion.  Maybe this is one reason why we Yorkshiremen have a reputation for being bluff and even opinionated!


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## Kenneth Garland

As Sound Shift suggests, I perceive this construction as characteristic of Northern BE dialects.


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## Kenneth Garland

I'm not sure Londoners would use 'innit' in that sentence, se16Teddy!   Perhaps 'he moves his feet too late, dunnee? [doesn't he?].  Or 'doney' more in the West of England?


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## se16teddy

panjandrum said:
			
		

> Teddy:
> That's no surprise, so it's not
> Would they be BE without the so?


 
I don't think so.  I think the BE construction (maybe more local than BE) is [pronoun] [verb] ..., does / is [name], 
rather than 
[name] [verb] ..., he / she does / is.


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## LV4-26

Kenneth Garland said:
			
		

> As Sound Shift suggests, I perceive this construction as characteristic of Northern BE dialects.


You may be right. Yet,
- Panjandrum is familiar with it
- it is used by Dickens who was born in Porstmouth and spent his youth in London
- One of the sample sentences I gave was written by someone raised in Bermondsey.


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## stargazer

Well, here's my two cents: I sometimes hear e.g. "He's a strange fellow, he is." I've never heard these tags with other verbs than "be".


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## CarolSueC

I'm not sure what to call this construction, but I read and hear this kind of thing in BE books, films, and television.  Basically it involves repeating the verb at the end of the statement and adding either a proper name or another noun or noun phrase that refers to the pronoun subject of the main clause.  In AE we'd probably simply say "John's a clever boy" or "John's certainly a clever boy."  I'm curious whether this construction is really widely used and if anyone knows when it came into use and why it didn't make its way into AE.


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## Pedro y La Torre

I'd see it as more of an Irish thing to be honest, I don't frequently see the English using such a construction.


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## Josh_

I suppose you could say "He's a clever boy, John is," but I think the usual structure is to say the name is the first part of the sentence and then repeat the word with a pronoun.  Further, I think in the first part the 'is' is almost always contracted:

"John's a clever boy, he is."

I don't know what this structure is called as well (if it even has a name), but I believe it is just used for emphasis.  And I don't think it is ever used in formal writing.


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## laurahya

I certainly wouldn't recommend it in formal writing, no. But it's fairly common (even in England!) when used for emphasis. In my experience it would be more likely to be used without the second verb:

_He's a clever boy, John._

Perhaps that's a regional preference...


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## panjandrum

It's a different way of adding emphasis.
John's a clever boy, isn't he.
John's a clever boy, so he is.
He's a clever boy, is John.

Are the last two "an Irish thing" to be honest
I don't know, to be sure, so I don't.


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## Josh_

They might be.  I know the last two aren't used in AE that way.  To me " He's a clever boy, is John" sounds like an awkwardly worded question as the verb normally comes first in questions of this sort.  In AE it is almost always "..., John is" with the verb coming after the noun.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Well here, it would never be used in formal situations and to be honest it's not even that common.

You'd mainly hear it used in more rural areas.


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## dihydrogen monoxide

How many English dialects use this kind of sentence structure?
a) That is a good bike, that is
b) That is a fine wine, that is
 <<...>>


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## xqby

Your examples sound funny in Californian English. I think the structure is stereotypically Cockney; I recall being utterly sick of hearing "But I'm a good girl I am!" after watching Shaw's Pygmalion.


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## Loob

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> How many English dialects use this kind of sentence structure?


Lots of them, I'd say!

With the proviso that the first "is" would always be contracted: "that's a good bike/fine wine, that is".

This is an informal, spoken, construction.


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## Kevin Beach

In my experience, repetition of that sort is confined to parts of Northern England nowadays, but if somebody knows of it in Cockney or other London speech, I won't argue.


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## panjandrum

*That is a good bike, that is.*
As Loob suggests, the first *is *has to be contracted.
*That's a good bike, that is.*
For me, the first *That *has to become an *It*.
*It's a good bike, that is.*
And to be really fluent, I need to reverse the tag statement.
*It's a good bike, is that.*
And finally, I would elide *It's a*.
*A good bike, is that.*
Aaaah, now I can relax 

Tag statements, in various forms, are very common (as are *tag questions* which are not the topic of this thread).
They are best avoided in formal English - I think?


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## Full Tilt Boogie

Kevin Beach said:


> In my experience, repetition of that sort is confined to parts of Northern England nowadays, but if somebody knows of it in Cockney or other London speech, I won't argue.


 
Kev, remember the Cockney song:

"I'm Hen-rry the Eighth, I am.
Hen-ery the Eighth, I am, Iam..."


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## xqby

I would hazard the statement that they're not as common in American English. "That's a nice bike, that is" sounds redundant to me; you just said what you're talking about at the start of the sentence, no need to say it again. I can only really envision ending a sentence with "that is" if I had made a clarification: "She's cute. The same way that bunnies are cute, that is." And I don't think that meets the criterion of echoing the sentiment of the main clause.


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## nzfauna

All I'll say is that those kinds of constructions look *very old fashioned* to me, and BE.


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## panjandrum

The July 2008 thread has been added to the end of the previous thread on the same topic - tag statements.  
Please read from the beginning of the thread.


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## Kevin Beach

I think there are two regional varieties here.

The first is from the north of England. The structure is in the form:

*She's a grand lass, (is) our Mary.*

*He's a bit of a fool, (is) that Tommy.*

*You're a bit daft at times, you are.*

The other is from Ireland, particuarly the North:

*I'm going to clean the car, so I am.*

*We're going to get into a mess like this, so we are.*

*Mary's a grand lass, so she is.*

In both cases, the tags are added for emphasis. In the northern English examples, sometimes it's because the sentence starts with a pronoun and the tag identifies its "owner".

I don't think there's any point in trying to discern fixed rules for this sort of usage. It's all informal.


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## cycloneviv

With Loob's contraction, I think either sentence could be said here in Australia and nobody would bat an eyelid.


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## ewie

Oh dear. I use this kind of jobbie _[technical term]_ *all the time*: they're as much a part of my local variety of English as ... erm ... the next thing that's highly typical etc. This post's going really well so far.

I'd also add that, as in Panjo's ever-reducing example [post #30], you don't necessarily need a *subject* in the first half:
_Got run over by a bloody big wagon, she did_
In fact, the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that more or less _any_ utterance can be reversed in this way:
_Daft as a brush, is that one_
_Not got the brains she were born with, hasn't she_
etc. etc. etc.

The _so she does_ versions sound very Northern Irish to me too.


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## Kevin Beach

As a Londoner with both Northern English and Irish heritage I have to say that I find tag expressions very attractive. They enrich the speech rhythm, to my ear.


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## ewie

Me too, KB.  I'll listen out for some choice ones while I'm out and about ... or at home blethering.


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## Loob

I don't think these expression are distinctively "northern", Kevin, though I agree that the versions with 'so' sound distinctively Irish.

I use the ones without 'so' all the time, too, and I'm a south-westerner who's never lived further north than Gloucestershire


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## Kevin Beach

Loob said:


> I don't think these expression are distinctively "northern", Kevin, though I agree that the versions with 'so' sound distinctively Irish.
> 
> I use the ones without 'so' all the time, too, and I'm a south-westerner who's never lived further north than Gloucestershire


Maybe it's just a non-south-eastern thing then!


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## PMS-CC

xqby said:


> I would hazard the statement that they're not as common in American English.


 
I agree, but if you add a "that" in the tag, it sounds a bit more familiar to my Californian ears. I'm not sure why it makes it more palatable to me.

That's not to say that the construction is common in AmE (and certainly not that it's common in California), but I know I've heard these constructions in the national media. 

Examples:

"He's got a good arm on him, that Elway does."

"He's a heckuva speaker, that Obama is."


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## dihydrogen monoxide

PMS-CC:I didn't know American English accepts that kind of structure, I always found it to be very British.


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## xqby

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> I didn't know American English accepts that kind of structure, I always found it to be very British.


 
Mmm, we tend to avoid tag statements if they just reiterate the main clause (those are the ones that sound Britishy), but it's fine if you're making the original idea more specific. The use of "that" is a very good point, though I'd like to clarify things a bit: it only really works in AmE if it's being used as an adjective.

"He's a great writer, that man." 
"He's a great writer, that he is."


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## katie_here

Well, as one from the North West of England, to hear someone say 

"Tim knows a lot of rude gestures, so he does"  would be spoken by someone from Northern Ireland. 

I've never heard of caboose and I still don't know what it means. 

Our shortened slang version of "doesn't"  is "dunt". 

"Tim dun't know any rude gestures!".


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