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When did starting every sentence with "Look..." become a 'thing'?
Watching BBC Breakfast this morning and an interview with Mike Tindall, during which he began every one of his replies with "Look". This interview was followed by an interview with Sajid Javid. His answer to the first question began with "Look".
Our Antipodean friends having been doing this for a while now, it's seems especially prevalent among their cricket and rugby fraternity, but it seem to be becoming more and more common.
Is this the new 'so'?
Watching BBC Breakfast this morning and an interview with Mike Tindall, during which he began every one of his replies with "Look". This interview was followed by an interview with Sajid Javid. His answer to the first question began with "Look".
Our Antipodean friends having been doing this for a while now, it's seems especially prevalent among their cricket and rugby fraternity, but it seem to be becoming more and more common.
Is this the new 'so'?
s off.Zirconia said:
Whenever a politico says "look" I read it as here comes the spin and avoidance to the question.
Absolutely. Having been trained to give media interviews, the ex journalists delivering the training made a specific point of explaining the use of 'look' and 'lets be clear'. They said these are usually used when the person being interviewed is going to provide an answer totally unrelated to the question they were asked.However this is a legitimate interview tactic and can look better than saying 'i don't know' and it gives you a chance to get whatever messages you want to get across, regardless of the questions being asked. I agree that's it's annoying though when people (politicians usually) continually avoid answering specific questions if the truthful answer will make them look bad. Sometimes the best approach is to be honest and say sorry, I messed up!
However, the words 'politician' and 'truthful' are rarely found in the same sentence.
I noticed this first when I was working with a lot of Australian/New Zealanders a few years back who used it frequently.
I talked to a couple of colleagues about this. They didn't realise that to us genteel Poms, this is quite confrontational/defensive and it sends the wrong message when you're starting a reply (and certainly made the atmosphere in meetings uneccessarily combative). But to them they just said it out of habit and it didn't mean anything. A bit like starting a sentence with "So...".
I use "Look", to emphasise, or repeat a point to someone asking a daft or repeated question that they don't get the answer, usually when getting a bit exasperated.
Perhaps like the pointless rising inflection that seemed to come from Australia, this is also now becoming a popular "thing" over here too.
I talked to a couple of colleagues about this. They didn't realise that to us genteel Poms, this is quite confrontational/defensive and it sends the wrong message when you're starting a reply (and certainly made the atmosphere in meetings uneccessarily combative). But to them they just said it out of habit and it didn't mean anything. A bit like starting a sentence with "So...".
I use "Look", to emphasise, or repeat a point to someone asking a daft or repeated question that they don't get the answer, usually when getting a bit exasperated.
Perhaps like the pointless rising inflection that seemed to come from Australia, this is also now becoming a popular "thing" over here too.
xx99xx said:
Absolutely. Having been trained to give media interviews, the ex journalists delivering the training made a specific point of explaining the use of 'look' and 'lets be clear'. They said these are usually used when the person being interviewed is going to provide an answer totally unrelated to the question they were asked.
However this is a legitimate interview tactic and can look better than saying 'i don't know' and it gives you a chance to get whatever messages you want to get across, regardless of the questions being asked. I agree that's it's annoying though when people (politicians usually) continually avoid answering specific questions if the truthful answer will make them look bad. Sometimes the best approach is to be honest and say sorry, I messed up!
However, the words 'politician' and 'truthful' are rarely found in the same sentence.
Indeed it is a tactic. I know there are many briefings on what to say, what to avoid, what to steer away from and for gods sake don't say I don't know.....However this is a legitimate interview tactic and can look better than saying 'i don't know' and it gives you a chance to get whatever messages you want to get across, regardless of the questions being asked. I agree that's it's annoying though when people (politicians usually) continually avoid answering specific questions if the truthful answer will make them look bad. Sometimes the best approach is to be honest and say sorry, I messed up!
However, the words 'politician' and 'truthful' are rarely found in the same sentence.
prand said:
this is quite confrontational/defensive and it sends the wrong message when you're starting a reply
Agreed. I work with a number of Aussies too, and the whole 'Look' thing can often come across as confrontational despite it usually just being a habit with no real intention of being so. I occasionally pick them up on it !
) interrupted someone when they have said that and asked why they turned around - usually met with a blank stare and asked what I mean 
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