Blunt Zoomers reject 'I beg your pardon?' for 'you what?'

EH? If a young person fails to catch what someone has said they are more likely to say “you what?” than something more polite such as the traditional “excuse me?” or “pardon?”, a survey has found.

- By Martin Winter

Three-quarters of younger people consider “pardon” too formal, preferring more informal options such as “come again?” or “eh?”, or even the perhaps overly honest “I zoned out”.

And that’s if you're lucky — because just over half of Generation Z, also known as Zoomers, say they feel too awkward asking someone to repeat themselves, so they just nod along instead.