"Hells, yeah ! "

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 1/3/06, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Watch the videogame commercial here:
>
>   http://gameads.gamepressure.com/tv_game_commercial.asp?ID=3494
>
>   and tell me why the characters are saying " Hells, yeah ! " instead of
> the universally known " Hell, yeah ! "
>
>   How long has this weird pluralization been going on ? How many Hells must
> we worry about now ?

Urban Dictionary has the interjection "hells" from Jan. 2004, with
other variations following:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hells
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hells+ya
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hells+yeah
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hells+no
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hellsno

I assume this is the same phenomenon one sees in "moms" for "mom", to
take another example of seemingly extraneous pluralization.

Another new interjection is "hell to the no!", popularized by Whitney
Houston on the reality show "Being Bobby Brown".


--Ben Zimmer