how do people talk?

When (American) TV actors utter the phrase “What are you doing here?”, as I must have heard dozens of times lately, they nearly always emphasize doing — and I nearly always think it would make more sense to emphasize either here or you; if the question were provoked by your doing rather than your presence, the asker would omit here.

Am I taking the phrase too literally? How do you say it?

This entry was posted in cinema, language. Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to how do people talk?

  1. Anton says:

    A worse one, uttered only by the guest cast: “I’d say it happened two. Maybe three weeks ago.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *