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Use of datte in sentence/phrase

letslearn

先輩
11 Sep 2013
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Hi All,
Just a quick question on the use of datte in this story book sentence/phrase.

だってうんちは何の役にも立たないし。嫌なにおいもす るし。。。

I'm interpreting the sentences as " gee.. useless good for nothing poo/crap..All it does is make you smell unpleasant and such...

Is this right?
 
That makes sense as the previous sentence states that the character is 恥かしい
 
Why would anyone badmouth crap in such a way.. if we kept eating and the crap just built up inside us we would live very short lives.. and grow super fat super fast..

More on topic: The context I read into this is that the person has already said that crap = crap or that they don't like to crap or something of the sort. And they are further explaining why it is so. And that is usually the sort of situation it is used in. A statement is made without mentioning the reason and when challenged, you use datte. That's my impression at least.

A:あした学校さぼろう!
B:はあ!なんなんだよ!
A:だって、つまらないから!

It may just be me having watched too much drama/anime, but does it give sort of a childish impression? As if the argument is not very serious? Or maybe it implies that the person very emotionally invested?
 
Hmm... "childish" I'm not totally sure I can go along with, but "emotionally charged" I'd agree with. I suppose, though, more precisely I'd say that it isn't necessarily childish, but is necessarily (i.e., "always") emotionally charged. E.g.,

だって、そんなことしたくないもん!

At any rate, the speaker quoted in this example clearly doesn't have a basic understanding of biology, but it is a funny statement nonetheless. :)
 
だって can be used when accepting a situation with resignation, e.g., だってしょうがないじゃない。もうどうしようもないし。
 
I'd still classify that as emotionally charged, like desperation or something, even if it doesn't go that far. Resignation is kind of like frustration combined with not wanting to deal with something anymore to me.
 
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