It was never needed in the past and ads no context that a simple exclamation point or bold letters could do if a person wants to add emphasis.
It was never needed in the past and ads no context that a simple exclamation point or bold letters could do if a person wants to add emphasis.
That’s interesting.
It might be a parallel development to address the same issue. It isn’t like people incorrectly interpreting what others say is a new thing.
Another possibility is that, initially, the “but” came as an afterthought, to highlight the contradiction. Then in Oz+Kiwi English it became frequent enough to be conventionalised. Like (reusing my example from the earlier comment):
A third possibility would be that that “but” initially implied something that got clipped for succinctness. I find it a bit unlikely due to your example, but I’ve seen people doing it with Portuguese “mas” (but):
@lvxferre because of the intonation, I think it’s likely the first one. It’s often used in a semi-humorous way.
Eg. “Charlene’s prettier than Stacey. Stacey’s dad owns a brewery, but.”