Ending a sentence in ぞと

Question

One of the people I follow on twitter sometimes ends his sentences in ぞと. Is this just a more polite form of ぞ？

Here's an example:

ブログUPしましたぞと♪(´ε｀ )

Answer 1

This ぞと should be broken down into two particles:

• ...ぞ: reinforces and reminds one's decision or will to oneself
  • ex. さあ、やるぞ。Here I go.
• ...と: light declaration
  • ex. いつか行こうっと。I'll visit there one day.

So your example roughly means, "There, I've posted a new blog article." And no, it doesn't add any politeness to the sentence.

The same と is discussed in this board (Japanese), which cites 明鏡国語辞典 {めいきょうこくごじてん} (Meikyo Japanese Dictionary):

（「・・・っと」の形で）軽く言い放つのに使う。 (In the form of ...っと) used to declare something lightly.

The preceding sentence is usually in volitional form, like もう寝ようっと. Or, as in the case of ...ぞ, expresses volition in some other way.

Note: depending on the context, there are cases that ぞと should be parsed as 「...ぞ」と, as explained in istrasci's answer.

Answer 2

I would split the example sentence into two parts:

ブログUPしましたぞ / と

Unfortunately, I cannot explain how the と affects the other part well, but as far as I can say as a Japanese, the と is a kind of like an interjection and its effect is vanishingly small, at least not making the sentence more polite.

FYI, Reno, a Final Fantasy 7 character, often ends his words with 〜ぞ、と。 or 〜だぞ、と。 the same way as the example. The person may perhaps just imitate this habit.

Answer 3

The only thing I can think of (without any context provided) is that this would be used when quoting what someone else said. Like:

彼は心斎橋へ行くぞと言った　【He said "Let's go to Shinsaibashi"】　→　Making known that he said something, and what it was.

みんなでどうしたらいいかについて彼は意見を言った。心斎橋へ行くぞと　【He gave his opinion about what we should all do together. "Let's all go to Shinsaibashi!"】　→　The fact that he said something was previously known. Now it's being made known what he said.