meh

[Nathan Bierma]

Related:
meh at LL:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003238.html
meh at ASD-L:
[thread beginning 6/8/06]
meh in article on interjections, at Slate:
http://www.slate.com/id/2159929/


Nathan Bierma
"On Language"
www.nbierma.com/language



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'Meh' joins ranks of little words that do grunt work
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By Nathan Bierma
April 13, 2007

We can speak volumes with one-syllable grunts: "nah," "ugh," "blah," "hah!"
Now we can add another utterance to our vocabulary: "meh."

"Meh" was popularized on "The Simpsons" as an expression of apathy. In a 1995
episode, Marge weaves "Hi Bart" on a loom to try to interest him in weaving,
but Bart indifferently replies, "meh." (According to an online message board
for Simpsons fans, this word was so foreign at the time that closed captioning
showed it as "nah.")

In a 2001 episode, Homer tries to talk Bart and Lisa into going to a theme
park, and they reply together, "meh." Homer asks if they're sure, and Bart
says, "We said 'meh,' " and Lisa adds, "M-E-H. Meh."

"Meh" has yet to enter a major dictionary, but it's listed in the user-edited
Wiktionary ( www.wiktionary.org) as expressing "I don't know (the verbal
equivalent of a shrug of the shoulders)" or "I don't care," and in the Urban
Dictionary (www.urbandictionary.com) as expressing "indifference; to be used
when one simply does not care." Ten visitors added "meh" to Merriam-Webster's
Open Dictionary at www.m-w.com.

A recent article on "meh" in the London Guardian called it "the word that's
sweeping the Internet," and commented, "It means boring. It means not worth the
effort, who cares, so-so, whatever. It is the all-purpose dismissive shrug of
the blogger and messageboarder."

The Simpsons get credit for helping "meh" go mainstream, but they didn't
invent the word; the show just brought it out from some hidden corner of the
culture. As early as 1992, "meh" shows up on a fan discussion board for the
show "Melrose Place." "Is [he] cute?" one fan asks about a character. Another
writes back: "Meh .. far too Ken-doll for me."

That's one of the earliest available written examples of "meh," but the word
probably existed in speech long before. How long? That stumps etymologists.

"Meh" sounds Yiddish to some, because of its similarity to the disapproving
Yiddish interjection "feh." A Google search turns up a song from a 1936 Yiddish
film with a line that (translated) says, "A goat stands in the meadow, and
bleats a sad 'meh!' "

"It's very possible that the 'Simpsons' writers took 'meh' from Yiddish,"
wrote lexicographer Benjamin Zimmer last year at Language Log (
www.languagelog.org), but he says he's not convinced. Zimmer concluded,
"whatever Yiddish origins the interjection might have had, they have been lost
in post-'Simpsons' usage."

I have my own hunch about the origins of "meh," and I decided to run it past a
few linguists. Here it goes.

Like the immortal "d'oh!" invented by the Simpsons, "meh" sounds to me like a
slight adaptation of a non-verbal utterance. Take "eh"--not the Canadian
sentence-ender, but the nasalized "enh" that naturally accompanies the shrug of
the shoulders. If you start saying this word before you open your mouth, you
naturally add an "M" when you part your lips. For a word that connotes apathy,
adding an accidental sound by not opening your mouth in time would make sense.

I thought I should run my theory past someone who actually knows what they're
talking about, so I turned to Laura Dickey, phonologist at Northwestern
University.

"I'd say that what you propose is reasonable phonetically," Dickey said, "but
I have no idea if it is true, and I can't think of [another case] when this has
happened in English, so there's no precedent."

Lexicographer Grant Barrett, meanwhile, gave me a not-so-ringing endorsement
for my theory: "Sure, why not?" he said.

Barrett noted that you can't get too scientific about words such as "meh" and
that other "Simpsons" favorite, "d'oh": "I suspect they're both just
transcribed versions of oral speech, which has any number of single-syllable
sounds that mean a variety of things," he wrote by e-mail.

However it got started, "meh" has given our culture a handy interjection for
its default mood of smug indifference. So handy, in fact, that now we're
starting to turn it into an adjective.

"Nowadays 'meh' has become firmly established in [online] TV fan forums, very
often extended to adjectival usage, as in 'that episode was meh' or 'that was a
meh performance,' " Zimmer wrote at Language Log.

Zimmer has also spotted several instances of "meh-ness," a noun meaning the
state of being "meh." He found "meh-ness" in fans' descriptions of the third
season of "American Idol": One singer "started out well but then faded into
meh-ness," one fan wrote. "Utter mehness," said another. Last year, an "Idol"
fan described a contestant as a "meh-ness to society," a play on the phrase
"menace to society."

If you ask me, any word that gives English speakers more fodder for puns is a
welcome addition to our language.

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Contact Nathan Bierma at onlanguage @gmail.com.

Nathan Bierma writes the weekly "On Language" column in the Chicago Tribune.
He is also contributing editor to Books & Culture magazine, and has taught
writing at Calvin College, where he works as communications and research
coordinator for the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. His website is
www.nbierma.com.

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