The following is the first sentence from a native speaker's video on Youtube about leaning English. He says:
"Hi, Bob the Canadian here, let's learn English at the grocery store."
He is simply introducing himself, and I can't quite understand why he uses the word "here", because I don't see anyone using it when they are introducing themselves.
So, really, why does he add "here" when introducing himself at the beginning? Without using the word "here" and not causing any change in meaning, he could have simply said "Hi, I am Bob the Canadian," couldn't he?
So my question is what is the function of the word "here" in that sentence if there is any? What kind of an effect does it make on the meaning?
Best Answer
If you appear and say "Hi, Bob the Canadian!" it sounds like you're saying hello to someone called Bob the Canadian. If you want to say hello and indicate that you are Bob the Canadian, then you need to say something else.
Saying "Hi, I'm Bob the Canadian!" implies that people don't know who you are - so it's fine in the first video but not in later videos.
"Hi, Bob the Canadian here!" is a way of announcing your presence, rather than saying your name. It's similar to when you walk into a room and say "Hi, I'm here!" or "Hi, it's me." But saying "It's me" is only suitable if you are very well known to the other person, not if you've just met a few times: it is polite for him to remind you of his name in case you've forgotten. If you met someone you'd only met a few times before, it's common to introduce yourself "Hi, I'm Dave, Susan's brother, you remember we met..."
It's common for TV personalities to say hello and introduce themselves in some way even if they're known, rather than just appear and immediately start saying "Today I'm going to be talking about..." It's perhaps politeness, as I said, and partly convention. It also give peoples a chance to pay attention, sit down, adjust the volume, and listen.