It was never needed in the past and ads no context that a simple exclamation point or bold letters could do if a person wants to add emphasis.

  • lemmefixdat4u@lemmy.world
    583·
    11 months ago

    Looking for an explanation, yes? It’s a linguistic convention, totally. I mean, you know, we add a lot of unnecessary words, like, serious. It’s superfluous verbage. Look, I know it seems to be a recent thing, but it’s, like, been going on for a long time, right?

  • running_ragged@lemmy.world
    562·
    11 months ago

    It does add context though.

    If I just said “it adds context”, it’s not seen as a counterclaim to your claim. It’s just a new standalone statement.

    • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
      153·
      11 months ago

      This is the correct answer. It doesn’t address the multiple mistakes in English and spelling that the OP ended up writing, though. Nor does it address the spelling variant, although that does not seem to be the particular focus of the original enquiry.

    • cheese_greater@lemmy.world
      11·
      11 months ago

      I sort of use it like as a hybrid of

      yes and

      yes but

      Might be the people-pleaser in me but I find it helps to make a contention both more palatable to hear and likely to be engaged with since you’re agreeing but also clarifying where you sense incongruity

  • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
    181·
    11 months ago

    (Shameless self-promotion: if you like this subject, consider [email protected] )

    It’s being used as an adversative conjunction, connecting a phrase (usually a clause) with whatever precedes it, in a way that highlights that the precedent would incorrectly imply something. Here’s a set of examples showing it:

    1. “That ‘tho’ is like a ‘but’. But it’s used at the end of the sentence.”
    2. “That ‘tho’ is like a ‘but’. It’s used at the end of the sentence tho.”
    3. “That ‘tho’ is like a ‘but’. It’s used at the end of the sentence.”

    #1 and #2 are equivalent: the first sentence introduces an information (that “tho” is like a “but”), that information implies something incorrect (if “tho” is like a “but”, it goes at the start of the sentence, right?), and the second sentence contradicts said implication (nope, “tho” goes at the end). With the “but” or the “tho”, that contradiction is explicit.

    Now look at #3 - it sounds like [incorrectly] saying that “but” goes at the end of the sentence, unlike #1 or #2.

    A conjunction going after the elements being “conjoined” might sound a bit weird, but it’s nothing new, or English exclusive. Latin for example used -que (additive conjunction; “and”) this way: first you list the items being conjoined, then plop a -que at the end. (Classical examples: “arma uirumque cano” [I sing the arms and men] and “Senatus Populusque Romanus” [Roman Senate and People]).

    Now, on why it’s being used this way: there’s the spelling and the increased usage.

    “Tho” as a short form for “though” is old; Merrian-Webster claims that it was already uncommonly used in the 18xx. It’s just that, nowadays, it became more socially accepted in informal writing, due to increased usage. This sort of “grammatical word” (conjunctions, articles, adpositions, copula verb etc.) tends to be rather small, both phonetically and spelling-wise.

    And the usage of “though” as an adversative conjunction is attested from the 12th century. Probably even older since cognates in other Germanic languages also have the adversative meaning.

    I’m not sure on what I’m going to say next, but I think that the increased modern usage is the result of some changes on how people interpret “but”. Some have been treating it as if it contradicted everything said before, like:

    • Alice: “I wanted a banana pie. Not an apple pie.”
    • Bob: “Why do you hate apples?”
    • Alice: “I like apples, but I like bananas better.”
    • Bob [who stopped hearing at the “but”]: “THAN U DUN LIEK APPLES!”

    That probably led to increased usage of “though” because it’s used after whatever you said the relevant piece of info. So it’s basically a way to cut short an assumption before it even happens.

    • thantik@lemmy.worldEnglish
      91·
      11 months ago

      Chan, I’m so glad I’m not the only one who immediately thought of this, tho.