> Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 20:25:50 +0000
> From: Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>
> At 10:19 am -0500 30/11/00, John Cowan wrote:
> >Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:
> >
> >> Wild tangent: And what's with the delicatessen staff at my local
> >> Waitrose asking 'Can I help you at all?' when I come up to the
> >> counter? To me, that 'at all' sounds almost accusatory.
> >
> >Are they from Ireland by any chance? That use of "at all" is
> >Hiberno-English.
>
> It may have once been an Irishism, but it certainly would not seem so now
> unless maybe the person concerned spoke with an Irish accent.
>
> The 'at all' is basically an empty tag to make "Can I help you?' seem less
> peremptory; it's certainly not meant to be accusatory.
It's probably interference from Danish pragmatics, then. If somebody
asks "Kan jeg overhovedet hj