Talk:you know

RFC discussion: December 2007–December 2010

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you know

Had old obscure cleanup tag on - it is a very scruffy page, dubious definitions and quotations, vague and unhelpful usage note, translations to be checked and sorted too and probably unclear headings - It would be an interjection, not a particle. --Keene 01:20, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

As you say, 2nd sense is clearly an interjection, very much like er, um, erm, uh, and possibly others that indicate hesitation. I have so amended it. Could the first sense be viewed as an impersonal pronoun, specifying "that which you know I mean, but don't want to say"? Reminiscent of you-know-who and similar. I will sleep on it and think about it tomorrow. DCDuring 02:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

My best guess would be pronoun for sense 1, and I agree with calling the second one an interjection. Good catch. --EncycloPetey 02:59, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Pronoun? Creative. Struck as dealt with. — Beobach 05:02, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Affirmative meaning

My English isn't good enough to write a definition, but I think "you know" can have an affirmative, confirming, confident sense. Something like: I'm not as stupid as you may think, you know! That's English, isn't it? Well, if so... I don't think it's covered by any of the definitions that we have. Kolmiel (talk) 23:01, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

you know the

We use you know the… when we are telling stories or introducing a person, place or thing which the listener already knows about: You know the guy who used to call around selling lottery tickets? --Backinstadiums (talk) 12:14, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Another common way of separating part of a sentence is to introduce it with You know... , as in You know Sylvia. Well, she ... --Backinstadiums (talk) 16:54, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

ELF

ELF speakers use you know predominantly as a selfserving strategy for purposes of creating coherence and “fumbling for words” in order to gain time for getting their message across (Juliane, 2009, p. 171) Backinstadiums (talk) 09:21, 23 June 2022 (UTC)