Stroppy. Fine are we indeed!

Question

¡Muy buenos días!

I am subscribed to a Wordpress blog called Doodlemum. Besides being a nice way to learnn english, is very funny. From that site I got this e-mail of a teenage girl showing a hostile face and on top of page it says: Stroppy. Fine are we indeed! - Link: http://doodlemum.com/2013/12/02/stroppy/#comments

My question is concerning the order of "Fine are we indeed!". Is it the same to say "we are fine indeed! and why is it used the pronoun we? Maybe, it refers to the ironic mum's thought. I would appreciate the translation into Spanish, but here is my try:

Problemática/Cascarrabias. ¡Ciertamente/En realidad estamos bien!

Thanks a bunch!

I can't be more grateful with you. All your generous contributions have led me to a better understanding of grammar, use and context. I always get stuck on this kind of upside down grammar structures. - Gloriange, Dec 3, 2013

Answer 1

En el inglés que usamos hoy en día, el orden de las palabras no puede cambiar. Es fijada. Normalmente hablamos así.

Un orden diferente nos sueña viejo y formal. Significa "En realidad estamos bien" pero las palabras tienen un sabor interesante. No sé cómo explicarlo pero yo no hablaría así excepto si quisiera que mi habla tenga "efecto especial".

Siento que mi opinion no sea muy útil. Es una manera de hablar my vieja y por eso puede ser formal o tal vez una broma (si quieres hacer el papel de un viejo o persona famosa como Ben Franklin o Abraham Lincoln).

El carácter Yoda en Star Wars habla así y muchas personas asocian esta manera de hablar con él

Ejemplos son:

"You need not worry" = "You don't have to worry" = "No tiene caso preocuparte"

"This shan't be pretty" = "This won't be pretty" = "Esto no será muy bonito"

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Por favor, corrige mi español

Excelente explicación HackerKIng. Nunca he oído hablar en inglés a Yoda, jaja. Por eso el primer comentario acerca de él. Te corrijo lo siguiente: -Es fijo -suena viejo/antiguo - opinión -vieja/antigua - el personaje de Yoda- ejemplos de esto son- . - Gloriange, Dec 3, 2013

Gracias! - HackerKing, Dec 4, 2013

Answer 2

Probably the Royal 'we', which queens and kings and occasionally prime ministers use.As for the word order, yes, colloquial and basically incorrect, but, these things happen, especially with teenagers! Stressing that we are fine, in the sense as superior, smarter, beter dressed, mas listo, whatever, rather than ' fine' as in ' How are you' :' I'm fine'.

I'm guessing, without looking at the picture.

Interesting. Humm, I had never heard about the Royal we. Do you know a possible translation of that we? - Gloriange, Dec 3, 2013

Disculpa annierats. Creo que ya encontré el artículo explicativo en Wikipedia. Gracias. - Gloriange, Dec 3, 2013

Answer 3

I think it is a way to subtly express empathy for the person spoken to or spoken about. For example, when a doctor or nurse first addresses a patient, they often ask "How are we feeling today?" instead of "How are you feeling today?"

In the particular case of "Fine we are indeed!", it seems to be a combination of the empathetic "we" and sarcasm/irony. The teenager in the cartoon says she is fine but the empathetic speaker knows that the teenager actually feels annoyed. (The word "stroppy" means easily annoyed.) The use of the word "indeed" emphasizes the sarcasm/irony of the speaker's strong agreement with the teenager's statement. It is possible that the strange word order is for the same reason.

I am familiar with that use of we in Spanish. We use it the same way too. How are we feeling today?= ¿Cómo vamos/nos sentimos hoy? - Gloriange, Dec 3, 2013

Answer 4

It sounds like something Yoda would say and don't forget, in English we capitalize such words.

lol :) - Kiwi-Girl, Dec 3, 2013