" Chandler: Well, she seems very nice and everything, but that whole thing about her coming all the way down here, just to see if I was okay? I mean,... how needy is that ? "
This sentence structure seems to be baffling many Asian learners including myself. " she seems very nice " is so clear cut in meaning but with " and everything ", we've got to brainstorm it and make some good guesses at times.
Any good explanations on this ?
This sentence structure seems to be baffling many Asian learners including myself. " she seems very nice " is so clear cut in meaning but with " and everything ", we've got to brainstorm it and make some good guesses at times.
Any good explanations on this ?
You're having difficulty because it isn't really very grammatical at all. "And everything," like "and all," originally meant "and other such things." As in, "she's nice and also [other good qualities]." But at some point, "and everything" just got to be a sort of sentence space-filler, kind of like "you know," or "like," for that matter. It's just a colloquial way of speaking. You don't have to worry about it, really. Just read the sentence as if "and everything" weren't there, and you'll still get the meaning. It's really only there for emphasis.
Comments
Students: Are you brave enough to let our tutors analyse your pronunciation?
like "mind you"
- maj
We tend to compare sentences to figure out the meaning or make guesses by analogy. As a result, the ... and everything .... or anything .... as anything make us come up with not a sure thing
- whl626