Specification of 'Definitely'

Question

A person asks:"Did Jim eat the apples,right?"

Answer 1: "He ate those apples"

Answer2: " He DEFINITELY ate those apples"

Do these answers have a difference? What is it?

Answer 1

The difference is that adding the "definitely" implies that you are asserting that there should be no doubt that Jim ate those apples.

Answer 2

A person asks:"Did Jim eat the apples, right?"

They shouldn't add "right?" onto the end of what is already a question. They'd only put it after a statement of fact, and then the "right?" is a way of asking for confirmation of the statement that's been made. Such as:

"Jim ate the apples, right?"

Answer 1: "He ate those apples."

Answer 2: "He DEFINITELY ate those apples."

If the sentence was just "He definitely ate those apples", it would simply suggest the person answering is more certain.

But if you are reading it all caps as DEFINITELY (or if it was spoken and said in a very exaggerated way), then that draws attention to the word in a way that should suggest "something more is going on".

What could that be?

• It is very serious for some reason. Jim has been caught red handed, and likely needs to be punished.

• Eating the apples might not be a big deal at all, so asking about it might be seen as silly. Emphasizing DEFINITELY--as if it were a severe crime to have eaten the apples--could be making fun of the questioner.

• The person answering may have eaten the apples, and not Jim. This might even be known to the person asking the question. By saying Jim DEFINITELY ate the apples--even though he did not--it shows being "in on the joke".

My point is: when you see strong emphasis--and the subject matter appears silly--the emphasis may all be part of the silliness.