Why Am I Not Surprised?

Question

Why am I not surprised?When you hear something outrageous, and say the above sarcastically, would you say "Why an I NOT surprised?" with stress on "not"?A: They speak a space language.B: Why am I NOT surprised?A: Oh, be serious! I'm telling you the truth.Does this dialogue sound okay?Hiro

Nona the brit · Accepted Answer

The last line is strange because 'why am I not surprised' is a sarcastic way to state that you expected something or predicted something. Or that someone has told you something stupidly obvious. (Take it literally. Why am I not surprised by this news? Because you are telling me something I already knew).

A seems to think B doesn't believe what was said in line 1 - and that is why line 3 doesn't make sense here.

HSS · Answer

I gave it more thought, and yes, the last line should be like "Oh, well, I thought there was a slim chance you wouldn't agree."

"NOT" gets stress, right?

Thanks, Nona.

Hiro

Avangi · Answer

HSSWhen you hear something outrageous, and say the above sarcastically, would you say "Why an I NOT surprised?" with stress on "not"? I usually hear it and say it with the stress on "surprised."

A: They speak a space language.
B: Why am I NOT surprised?
A: Oh, be serious! I'm telling you the truth.
Does this dialogue sound okay? It works for me. We'd assume space people would speak a space language, so B's remark is appropriate in that sense. (Why are you telling me the obvious?)
B's remark in itself doesn't indicate disbelief. But this remark is sometimes delivered in serious anger or disgust, and sometimes simply by way of clowning around. I believe in this case A thinks B is not taking A seriously, but is just playing along, and clowning around.

Hmmmm. How do you say it?? A thinks B thinks A is clowning around - and A thinks B is just following suit.
A is correct!

Why Am I Not Surprised?

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