What is "what are you on about?" on about?
I live in Florida, and somehow picked up this phrase recently. I use it to mean, "About what are you making such a fuss?," either because I can't understand what is the big deal or because I genuinely have little-to-no idea what the person is talking about.
Is this correct usage? Is this an English idiom (from England)?
For bonus respect, why or from whence the unusual construction? Is it just that a word was dropped between "you" and "on," like "What are you carrying on about?"
Solution 1:
It seems that the Brits use this and consider it typically British:
- Alan Townsend, a British teacher of English, used this phrase in an ESL idiom test he made.
- Mister Micawber, an American teacher of English who has lived in Japan for a long time, appears to know it and finds it normal enough (same link), so it is probably not new in America either.
- It is mentioned as typically British in this list of British idioms.
However, they all seem to use it somewhat differently from the way you use it, only as "what are you talking about?" — there appears to be no connotation of complaining about a fuss. The Urban Dictionary agrees:
what are you on about?
"what do you mean?"
it is a shortened version on "what are you going on about?" or "what are you talking about?"
usually used when someone is not making sense for extended periods of time or if you feel like you've missed something.
(Sic.) So it seems you were right to think that a participle was dropped; since "what are you going on about?" is also used in England, it must be "going". Perhaps it has branched out into new meanings in America.
[Edit] I have also heard other dialects and regions claim it, so we can't be sure of its origin.
Solution 2:
In Australia, "What are you on about?" implies to the person that they are just plain wrong about what they were talking about. It is often said somewhat sneeringly, as though you have a superior level of knowledge compared to them.
Solution 3:
No, it's just "what are you talking about". There could be a hint of droning, but there needn't be. In itself, it's a very neutral interrogative question when you want to know what's going on\what the other person means.