conversation - Is it redundant to append "bye" to "speak to you later"?



Are the closing greetings "see you later", "talk to you later", and the like sufficient to end a conversation (especially a phone conversation) or must they be succeeded by "bye" or another word of definite finality?


In other words, is it redundant to append "bye" to "speak to you later" or a similar wish?



Answer



I think it definitely has a use in some cases. The use is to get the person on the other end of the line to actually stop talking so you can end the call. Usually one starts signalling a desire to end the conversation by abandoning substantive answers in favor of simple affirmatives, transitioning at last to repeated versions of good-bye. Here's how such a dialogue sounds from that side of the conversation:



Yeah, that's a great idea, I'll take a look ... yeah ... uh-huh ... I'll have a look ... uh-huh ... yeah ... yeah ... uh .... uh, OK ... OK ... OK, talk to you later ... bye .... bye-bye. [Hangs up]



I made up my own term to describe this kind of dragged-out phone-call-ending: conversational dieseling (from dieseling as used in automobile parlance).


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