hoo-ha as euphemism

[Lynne Murphy]

I've been using hoo-ha a lot lately, in reference to a certain sinister
administrative process that's going on around me--as in "I can't talk about
that until this whole hoo-ha is over."  This thread has made me very
self-conscious about that (not that I think that the British English
speakers I'm talking to realize that the word could mean 'fanny'.  I just
have great capacity for self-consciousness!).

Lynne

--On 15 February 2007 11:49 -0500 Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
wrote:

> Mark A. Mandel wrote:
>> It certainly didn't mean 'vagina' in any of its countless appearances in
>> MAD Magazine in the fifties (I'm pretty sure) and sixties (for certain),
>> spelled "Hoo-hah!" That's an interjection of astonishment or triumph,
>> borrowed I think from Yiddish.
>>
>
> The only meaning of "hoo-hah" that's native to me is 'fuss, to-do'. I'm
> pretty sure I picked that up from my mother, who was born and raised in
> the NY suburbs.
>
> --
> =========================================================================
> =====
> Alice Faber                                    faber at haskins.yale.edu
> Haskins Laboratories                           tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
> New Haven, CT 06511 USA                        fax (203) 865-8963



Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer and Head of Department
Linguistics and English Language
Arts B135
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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