Don't say "yeah", say "yes".

Guest   Tue May 19, 2009 3:21 am GMT
What's with this? A cooking teacher at my high school tells her students not to say "yeah", but "yes". However she herself says "yeah" when talking to the students. So what's going on?
ta   Tue May 19, 2009 3:59 am GMT
It's like the 'usted/vous/vy' form. The teacher is allowed to say 'tĂș/yeah' to the students but the students must say 'usted/yes' to the teacher, because they are beneath the teacher on the social scale.
Doll   Tue May 19, 2009 4:30 am GMT
Rubbish. English has no "social scales" like that. Especially not with yes and yeah. The teacher obviously simply didn't like people using the word "yeah"--in the same way that many people disaprove of the word "okay" for example. The teacher was so used to hearing "yeah" that she unconsciously used it herself. In a comic book I read, the teacher tried to "ban" the word "okay", and said that the next time someone said "okay" duing the next two weeks, that person would have to wash all the cars in the parking lot. Well it ended up that the teacher had to wash all the cars because she forgot her own rule. It is very hard to monitor ones own speech 100% of the time.
Doll   Tue May 19, 2009 4:37 am GMT
Also teachers especially in high school and university in my experience tend to be much more formal or respectful to the students than the students are to the teachers, except in foreign language classes where the students practice the informal forms with the other students and address the teacher with the formal forms so that they have practice using both. But in regular classes the teachers often address the studenyts as "sir/ma'am", whereas the students would never address the teacher in that manner except in jest.
Doll   Tue May 19, 2009 4:38 am GMT
Also teachers especially in high school and university in my experience tend to be much more formal or respectful to the students than the students are to the teachers, except in foreign language classes where the students practice the informal forms with the other students and address the teacher with the formal forms so that they have practice using both. But in regular classes the teachers often address the studenyts as "sir/ma'am", whereas the students would never address the teacher in that manner except in jest.
Truth in your face!   Tue May 19, 2009 5:30 am GMT
<<Rubbish. English has no "social scales" like that. Especially not with yes and yeah>>

Rubbish. Yes it does. It's the difference between "informal" and "formal". You're not supposed to use informal language with someone who is suppossed to be your superior. I agree that "yes/yeah" is not a very good case, and only a pedant would consider this a case of being insubordinate. A more common example would be addressing a teacher with "bro" or "dude". With "yes/yeah" it is a bit more extreme and only some people will be annoyed about it.

<<Also teachers especially in high school and university in my experience tend to be much more formal or respectful to the students than the students are to the teachers,>>

Of course, students may be disrespectful of the teacher, but that is because such is their intention, not because it has anything to do with the language.


<<But in regular classes the teachers often address the studenyts as "sir/ma'am", whereas the students would never address the teacher in that manner except in jest. >>

Maybe there is some reverse psychology going on here. By using formal speech the teacher is putting him/herself on a higher, more sophisticated level than the students, which emphasises their authority and enhances their air intellectual superiority.
Doll   Tue May 19, 2009 2:28 pm GMT
If any teacher said that to the students, I would imagine that they would contrive to use "yeah" as much as possible. Obviously the teacher would not expect the students to speak more formally to them if they themself used informal language to the students. What kind of teachers have you had?!? The teacher obviously made a slip-up when she herself used "yeah".
Leasnam   Tue May 19, 2009 3:16 pm GMT
<<What's with this? A cooking teacher at my high school tells her students not to say "yeah", but "yes". However she herself says "yeah" when talking to the students. So what's going on? >>

The teacher might be referring specifically to the use of 'yeah' in response to a question, where a 'yes' would be more polite. Sure, everyone uses yeah, and yeah can be used in many different ways:

"This looks ok, yeah?"
"Yeah, I like that coat!"
"Hell Yeah!"

But when a teacher asks a student: "Will you please read the first chapter aloud for the class?" and the student replies, "Yeah", that's disrespectful. "Yes" is more polite in this instance.

So it's not a matter of doing away with 'yeah' in all haps and cases, just when it's an affirmation to a direct question by an authority figure.
Travis   Tue May 19, 2009 3:41 pm GMT
This is a whole lot of prescriptivist nonsense, honestly. The normal affirmative word in English is "yeah" *not* "yes", which is specifically emphatic and is largely only used for answering direct yes-no questions. Using "yes" all the time would probably sound generally over-the-top more than anything else in practice.
silliness incarnate   Tue May 19, 2009 8:17 pm GMT
Yeah, the whole debate is absurd. The teacher needs to get a life, there are worse things one can do to the English language. Do the French complain if oui is pronounced "wa" instead of "wee"? Don't know, just asking.
h"   Tue May 19, 2009 8:38 pm GMT
Actually most people would just replace "yeah" with "okay" a lot of the time
fiona   Tue May 19, 2009 8:56 pm GMT
my english teacher once taught me that "yeah" is rude......
so i only say "yes"
fiona   Tue May 19, 2009 8:56 pm GMT
my english teacher once taught me that "yeah" is rude......
so i only say "yes"
Truth in your face!   Tue May 19, 2009 10:06 pm GMT
<<This is a whole lot of prescriptivist nonsense, honestly. The normal affirmative word in English is "yeah" *not* "yes", which is specifically emphatic and is largely only used for answering direct yes-no questions. Using "yes" all the time would probably sound generally over-the-top more than anything else in practice. >>


Well, I agree that it is silly, but I was just explaining to the poster why it happened. Whether we like it or not, there are as many prescriptivists as there are descriptivists. It seems like that teacher was the former.
Bob   Wed May 20, 2009 8:47 pm GMT
<<my english teacher once taught me that "yeah" is rude......
so i only say "yes">>

There's nothing rude about "yeah". It's the normal affirmative word in English and all native speakers use it, even those who complain about it.


In "yeah right", using "yeah" is mandatory. You can't replace it with "yes" in this instance.