Yeah, No.

Onstage? Offstage? Yeah, No.

Recently, I directed Puffs by Matt Cox for a local theatre. It’s a parody of a certain school of wizarding and magic told from the point of view of the Puffs, the house lowest on the school’s totem pole. It is a wild ride, with 7 of the 12 actors playing 4-11 distinct characters, over 700 sound cues, about 300 light cues, 24 wands, at least 50 ten-seconds-or-less costume changes, and a commensurate number of high-intensity entrances and exits through four doors, 2 curtains, a platform behind an archway with stairs on its right and left, and the lobby. It was fast, funny, and probably the biggest logistical challenge of my artistic director career—but what a hoot!

The character Megan, the anti-Puff Puff (played brilliantly by Sally Rose Zuckert), used a quirky phrase in one of her scenes with the stalwart character Oliver (played with equal brilliance by Timothy Huber), and it stood out because I’m hearing it more and more often in regular conversation.

OLIVER: Yeah—we should uh, study together all the time.

MEGAN: Okay, yeah, no.

“Yeah, no.” Led in by “Okay.”

Matt Cox (the playwright) encourages improvisation in certain parts of the show, which initially attracted me to the script. Because my actors were improvising lots of exit lines between the short scenes, when I heard Megan use “Yeah, no,” I had to go back to the script to see if she was improvising. Nope. There it was in copyrighted print. 

The Versatile “Yeah, No”

We Americans are famous for our speech fillers. Give us five words and we’ll stuff in eight or more sounds, syllables, or extraneous words. “Yeah, no” is often used as a filler, much like “uh…” or “um…” or the seemingly ever-present “like.” I’ve heard these and other fillers wrapped around the each other: “Um, yeah, no, maybe, uh, I don’t know, like, okay.” It sounds like the speaker is bobbing away on an ocean of indecision.

But I’ve come to learn that “yeah, no” is much more than a filler or a person’s weak decision-making skills.

Sure, “Yeah, no” can show that the speaker has not made up their mind yet or is hesitant about something. “Yeah” is the first word that pops out of their mouth, but then they change their mind and say “No.” We’re all allowed to change our mind. This phrase confirms our right to do so.

However, “Yeah, no” is often used quite strategically, not unlike Megan’s use in Puffs. The “yeah” affirms that the other person was heard. Yeah = message received; Megan confirms she heard Oliver’s offer to “study together all the time.” It’s followed by the clarifying intended answer: “Nope. Not gonna happen.” In this case, “yeah” softens the blow of “no.”

She could have chosen to say it sarcastically, to trick Oliver into thinking she was going to study with him only to let him down big time. In sarcastic usage, “yeah” relaxes the listener as their brain hears a positive, reinforcing response first. “No” pulls the rug out from under them. Our Megan let Oliver down in a nicer fashion. And if you know the scene, she doesn’t let him down at all.

Apologies to Matt Cox

In the big battle-between-good-and-evil scene, Megan encounters her “evil” mother, Xavia Jones (played by the comic genius Jenny Maso), for a second time in the play. Xavia has been tasked with turning her daughter to the wizarding dark side—or else. In her comic ineptitude, Xavia waves her wand and mis-utters the spell multiple times. Somehow, Megan feels compelled to teach her mother the correct verbiage. Xavia finally gets it right, waving her wand and cursing an evil Death Buddy (read that: she kills them). Seeing what she hath wrought, Xavia melodramatically exhorts Megan to use her wand to give her “THE FATE A MURDERER DESERVES!”

The script calls for Megan to say, “Yeah, so, considering the one person you’ve killed was evil…I don’t think you’ll get into too much trouble.” In a moment of brain fog, our Megan improvised, “Yeah, no…” and continued the line. These two words conveyed “I hear ya, Mom. But I’m not doin’ that.” She might have even thrown in an “okay” in there.

Sorry for the missed line, Matt, but the “yeah, no” works.

Now You Won’t Be Able to NOT Hear It

If you haven’t been aware of “yeah, no” before reading this, surely now you will hear it all around you—maybe even onstage. Our language is constantly changing, and, for better or for worse, this phrase is one of those language updates.

When “yeah, no” registers with you, take a moment and consider: Would it have been better said with a wand?