Aren't "interested questions" silly?

[UnquietDad]

"I saw John in town yesterday."
"Oh. Did you?"
"Yes."

"I've got a new car."
"Have you?"
"Yes."

I mean, what a waste of breath. You're not going to say "No, I was making it up," are you?

Tribal noises UD.
Nowt else.
Keeps the wheels of civilisation turning.

Althoguh my pet hate is folk who volunteer completely useless bits of info. and expect one to be interested.

For example....

Boring person 'Do yuo know,I've never put sugar on my porridge since 1981?'

Me 'Who gives a shit? Really?'

they are open questions, inviting the other person to reveal as much as they want to. Micheal Parkinson built a career on it.

I once had to teach a bunch of Germans a whole TWO HOUR lesson on "question tags."

"You're going out tonight, aren't you?"
"He's got a big house, hasn't he?"

They found it SO difficult. They kept saying "going you?" and "got he?"

The other one which sticks in my mind is the one I had to do on "expressions of mild surprise".

"James has a red bike."
"Really? That's astonishing. I thought he had a blue car."

"Jane lives in Wolverhampton."
"That's amazing. I thought she lived in Leeds."

Practises the different forms and tenses of the verb, you see.

I lost the will to live after about ten minutes.

tho' he was probably more successful at spelling Michael than me....

Tags are a bugger in English.
You should try them in Welsh. Even worse.A million types of yes and no to boot.

lol lol at mild surprise issue thoguh.

I can just imagine your students very earnestly and very politely practising their expressions of mild surprise.

Oh yes, they were very earnest!

"Got" used to cause people no end of trouble. They just couldn't work out why it was there.