ameliorated "Shut up!" in WSJ

[Laurence Horn]

It's always reassuring to find articles citing the likes of Erin
McKean and Connie Eble.  This one I've only noticed on TV
commercials, but I assumed they were referencing actual usage by
someone.

Larry
=================

Amused? Want to Hear More?
One Term Says It All: 'Shut Up!'
By SHELLY BRANCH
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

As chief of staff to a California assemblyman, Bob Hartnagel chooses
his words carefully -- especially when his boss is around. But once
the coast is clear, he can't resist tossing off a playful "Shut up!"
to his colleagues. "It's kind of an exclamation point to whatever's
going on," says Mr. Hartnagel, 32 years old. "If it's met with a
smile, you proceed. If there's a gasp ... you refrain."
Not too many years ago, the unrude use of "Shut up!" might have
baffled linguists and just about everybody else. But the term has now
made its way from schoolgirl chatter to adult repartee and into
movies and advertising. People use it as much to express disbelief,
shock and joy as to demand silence. In some circles, it has become
the preferred way to say "Oh my God!" "Get out of town!" and "No
way!" all at once.

A recent ad for Hyundai's Elantra shows a young woman sparring with a
dealer. "Shut up!" screams the woman, who pokes the man in the chest
each time he points out a feature that sounds too good to be true.

Editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary are considering a new
entry for "Shut up!" in the next edition. "I think we should add it
because it appears to be widespread," says senior editor Erin McKean.
Already, she has mulled possible definitions: "used to express
amazement or disbelief" and "oh, so true!"

Shut up! is the latest example of a linguistic phenomenon called
amelioration, whereby a word or phrase loses its negative
associations over time. A classic example is "nice," which meant
"stupid" up through the 13th century. Recent flip-flops include "bad"
(as in good) and "dope" (as in great). "Words that were once
considered rude are now included in regular conversation, but in a
context that lets you know it's not impolite," says Connie Eble,
professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill and the author of "Slang and Sociability." "They become so
generalized that the shock value wears off."

Words with rich semantic connotations "typically have the possibility
to mean their opposite when used in an ironic or joking context,"
adds Bert Vaux, an associate professor of linguistics at Harvard
University.

In the case of the Elantra ad, copy writers at the Richards Group in
Dallas settled on the line while cramming last Memorial Day weekend
for snappy, youthful expressions. At first, they considered having
the actress say something like, "no way," or "you're kidding," but
were inspired by the irreverent lingo that staff people in their
twenties had been shouting across the agency's open-office cubicles.

"There's a very fine line between being funny and obnoxious," says
creative director Mike Malone, who was nervous about offending
Hyundai's older dealers. "But every time we said 'Shut up!' it just
sounded funnier." He knew he had a hit on his hands, he says, when
the agency showed the TV spot to a group of Hyundai dealers in their
fifties and they burst out laughing. "After the meeting, they were
all walking around telling each other to shut up," says Mr. Malone.
To assure the proper tone for their ad, writers for the Hyundai spot
auditioned more than 200 actresses. "We were getting a really
annoying read," says writer Kevin Paetzel, who wanted the character
to have a more endearing quality. "The trick is to hit the 'sh' very
hard."
The most effective enunciation also places a full stop between "shut"
and "up." Excitable types pitch their voices higher on the word "up."
(Mr. Hartnagel adds "right now!" when he's feeling acutely peppy.)
Spoken in haste, the phrase loses what linguists call its "rhythmic
features." Then, it can sound too much like an affront.

Once considered base, "shut up" has a long, distinguished history.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, an early documented use,
in 16th-century England, was a figurative one, meaning "to withhold
one's money or kindness from a person." In 1840, the New Orleans
Picayune printed the first known slang/imperative use of "shut up,"
when a reporter referred to an officer's demand for a Dutchman to be
quiet.

More recently, children's author Meg Cabot has given the phrase a
literary twist. Her title character in "The Princess Diaries" favors
it to express geeky teenage delight. Disney screenwriters were so
fond of the princess's breezy use of the term that they wove it
prominently into the movie adaptation. "Shut up!" even landed in the
promotional trailer for the film. "I've had a lot of letters from
parents thanking me sarcastically for introducing 'shut up!' to their
kids' vocabulary," says Ms. Cabot.

The origins of the newest usage have fueled some debate. Ms. Cabot
says she picked it up a few years ago from schoolgirls on Manhattan's
Lower East Side. An earlier adopter of the phrase was the character
Elaine on "Seinfeld." In a 1992 episode written by Larry David called
"The Pez Dispenser," Jerry tells a story about a man who splashed
Gatorade on his head, got pneumonia and dropped dead. Elaine
responds: "Shut up!" In subsequent episodes, Elaine tells people to
"Shut up!" all the time -- but she really means it. Writers had her
intone the hip version just twice, according to Paul McFedries, a
language writer and founder of the online site "The Word Spy" who has
studied the complete body of Seinfeld scripts.

The fact that "Shut up!" seems to resonate particularly with women
doesn't surprise word whizzes. "Women tend to use more conversational
movers than men," says dictionary editor Ms. McKean, who also edits
"Verbatim," a language quarterly. "These are little phrases that help
keep the dialogue going."

Though some people don't like the phrase ("I think it just sounds
rude," says actress Drew Barrymore), plenty of professional types are
hooked. Says Dawn Jackson, a 32-year-old communications manager in
San Francisco, "There are just times when nothing else can express
the level of shock, surprise, you name it, that you're feeling."

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