Yee-ha(w) / "Rebel yell"

[Jonathan Lighter]

It's hard for me to imagine that if current "Yeeha(w)" was anywhere nearly as current in 1964 Slim (an old cowboy actor) wouldn't have yelled it.

  Will check _Red River_ ASAP.

  JL

Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
Subject: Re: Yee-ha(w) / "Rebel yell"
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On 12/4/06, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
> > I thought I remembered Slim Pickens as Major T.J. "King" Kong shouting
> > "Yeehaw!" in the climactic bombing scene of _Dr. Strangelove_ (1964),
> > but according to this site it was actually "Yahoo!"
> >
> > http://www.filmsite.org/drst4.html
>
>
> Such transcriptions are unreliable, as we know.
>
> I'll rent _Red River_ if Ben will do the same for _Dr. Strangelove_.

No need to rent _Dr. Strangelove_ when we have the miracle of Youtube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=uK4s9gwgUvs

Sounds like a series of "yahoo"/"wahoo"-type utterances to me.

Youtube lacks the "yeehaw" scene from _Red River_, unfortunately.


--Ben Zimmer

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