Is "it costs" a Canadian phrase?
One phrase I noticed comes up a lot in Pale is "it costs," typically used at the end of a sentence. Here are a couple of examples:
Loose Ends E.2:
“Well, we can try,” Sebastian said. “My concerns were about power use. Having that system searching and sorting for juries, it costs."
Also from that chapter:
"That doesn’t make me feel better. No, I don’t believe that you were the only option. There’s a desperation, an inventiveness, a strength that comes out of doing what has to be done, and it costs,” her mom said.
Hard Pass 22.6:
“You can do that?”
“It costs,” Miss replied. “But I have to. I’ll secure it with mechanisms. They’ll seem obscure to you, but…”
The meaning is clear from context, but I've never heard "It costs" used as the end of a sentence before. I've lived in the southeast, northeast, and midwest United States, and typically people would say "It's expensive," "It costs a lot of power," "It'll be costly," or something else instead.
Posted Nov 2, 2023, 1:30 AM UTC