"Gasp!"

[Jonathan Lighter]

OED misses the ironic, interjectional use of this word, mostly in writing, to indicate that what immediately follows should not be at all frightening or surprising. E.g.,


  1982 Patrick Hartwell & Robert H. Bentley _Open to Language_ (N.Y.: Oxford U. P.) 158: "Every paragraph has a topic sentence," they recite," and "every paragraph starts a new topic," as if, say, using two paragraphs to explore the same topic or even (gasp!) not having a topic sentence would subject them to the writerly equivalent of losing elevator, aileron, and rudder control and being subject to severe buffeting.

  It must come from talk balloons in the funnies of long ago.  My impression is that mostly very youthful, giggly people use it. Hartwell and Bentley presumably shared this perception, as they were English professors trying to keep teens interested in a composition textbook.

  JL


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