On Language on Heck

Landau, James James.Landau at NGC.COM
Mon Feb 13 13:43:03 UTC 2006


>         <<We drove all over Edinburgh, up to the castle, to the 
>university, to Holyrood, to the hospitals, and through many of the 
>principal streets, amid shouts, and smiles, and greetings.  Some boys 
>amused me very much by their pertinacious attempts to keep up with the 
>carriage.
>
>         "Heck," says one of them, "that's _her;_ see the _courls_.">>
>
>1 Stowe, Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands 81 (1854) (via Making of 
>America).  It is possible, of course, that Stowe chose to use an 
>American euphemism for the Scottish boys' actual exclamation.

Still another possibility---the boy in question may have been pointing
out something to his friend Hector.

         - Jim Landau

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