wouldn't you say
31
6.2
- idiom
:
¿no crees?
- It's kind of a funny hat, wouldn't you say?
- pretty well, wouldn't you say
- a bit different, wouldn't you say
- Well, wouldn't you say
So those are two pretty good mission statements, wouldn't you say the unexamined life is not worth living and know thyself, know thyself.
- So those are two pretty good mission statements, wouldn't you say the unexamined life is not worth living and know thyself, know thyself.
Examples
-
My wife is a bit of a romantic... but I'm more practical, wouldn't you say?
-
Four billion dollars is a hell of a lot of money for a few city blocks of housing projects, wouldn't you say?
-
Then she said, "A very strange man, that Lieutenant, wouldn't you say?"
Fiction book (1994) -
Pretty damn brilliant on my part, wouldn't you say?
Fiction book (1997) -
Sort of bad form, wouldn't you say?
Fiction book (1997) -
We did pretty well, wouldn't you say?
Fiction book (1997) -
Quite a coincidence, wouldn't you say?
-
"What a strange man for a policeman, wouldn't you say?"
Fiction book (1994) -
That's a strange career move, wouldn't you say?
-
This is just like old times, wouldn't you say ?
Synonyms
A word added at the end of a sentence to ask for agreement
Surface Forms
Morphology
wouldn't + you + say
The meaning 'to ask for agreement or confirmation' is directly derivable from the components: negative modal 'wouldn't' + pronoun 'you' + verb 'say' forms a rhetorical question inviting agreement. This is a regular, compositional tag-like construction found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words should readily infer its communicative function.
Etymology
Wouldn't you say is a short, polite question people add after a statement to ask for agreement. The parts wouldn't and you say make a gentle request, like someone turning to you and saying 'don't you agree?', so the phrase invites the listener to confirm.