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Glite Dictionary
who are you telling

who are you telling

9.9
A question you say to show you already know that fact
  • idiom
  • Informal
translation icon : ¿a quién se lo dices?
  • She complained about the weather, but who are you telling? We’ve all been stuck here all week.

Examples

  • I know the project will be tough—who are you telling?

  • "Exams are stressful," he said, and I just thought, who are you telling.

  • Oh, come on! Who are you telling?

  • Seriously, who are you telling that story to?

  • I can’t believe you think I need to hear that; who are you telling?

  • She sighed deeply and said, who are you telling? I already know how hard it is.

  • After he complained about being tired, I replied, who are you telling? I feel the same way.

Surface Forms

who are you telling main

Morphology

who + be + you + tell

The literal constituents ('who', 'are', 'you', 'telling') yield a clear question about the addressee of telling, so there is a visible link to the surface meaning; however the conversational, rhetorical use (meaning 'I already know / you need not tell me') depends on pragmatic inference and idiomatic discourse function rather than straightforward composition. A B1 learner who knows the words may grasp the literal sense but would likely need exposure to this pragmatic usage to infer the rhetorical meaning reliably.

Etymology

The question who are you telling comes from a simple picture: someone telling an obvious fact to a person who already knows it. So the question is used to say 'I already know' or 'you do not need to tell me'.