Origins
The origins of HRT remain uncertain. Geographically, anecdotal evidence places the conception of the American English variety on the West Coast – anywhere from Southern California to the Pacific Northwest.
With respect to the southern hemisphere, Allan (1990) suggested that the feature may have originated in New Zealand.
It is unclear whether the American English varieties and the Oceanic varieties had any influence on each other regarding the spread of HRT.
One theory is that it arose from the habit of some young people (in Australia, anyway) ending virtually every spoken sentence with:'You know?'. Omit the words but keep the inflection and you have HRT.
It will be apparent that the 'You know?' usage is closely related to other usages devoid of meaning such as the use of 'like', 'whatever' etc. The rapid spread of all of these across the English-speaking world is safely attributed to TV.
Read more about this topic: High Rising Terminal
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)