"yeah"

Wed Oct 17 14:47:39 UTC 2007

ECCO and EEBO overwhelmingly show "Yea" in biblical contexts, usu. meaning "yes indeed!" or "moreover" rather than as an offhand "yes."

  Why this should be so is puzzling.  Can it be that modern "yeah" really is just (or mostly) a recent apocope of "yes"?

  This is hard for me to believe.  "Yeah" just seems too fundamental a part of English.

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: "yeah"
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Isn't "nay" a borrowing from the Danish dialect of Old Norse? "Nay(,
Jim)" in place of "no" or "naw" in the Saint Louis of my youth, but I
doubt that the history of its use is any more interesting than the
history of "it matters not," always used in place of "it doesn't
matter" or "I don't care." My WAG is that both usages stem from movies
and stories about the days of knights.

Back in an earlier day, "yay" as in "Yay, team!" was spelled "yea." I
remember a cheer from a version of "The Gingerbread Boy":

Baker:
I'll make a gingerbread boy and surprise the children!
[forgotten passages]
Want banana in it?

Children:
Well, I guess!
We want the pat-a-cake
That we like best!
Yea, team!
Pat-a-cake! Pat-a-cake!
Baker's man!
Etc.

But, even at this time, ca.WWII, there was no connection in my mind
between biblical "yea" and cheer "yea," despite the identical spelling
and pronunciation. OTOH, I waas inmy forties before I made the
connection between "grass" and "graze," though I was aware of the
connection between "glass" and "glaze." A Swedish friend of mind was
chatting about something or other:

Swedish friend: "... grassing ..."

Me: "'Grassing'? What does that mean?"

Swedish friend: "You know. Like 'sheep grassing in the meadow.'"

The light dawned. And Hugh Masekela's "Grazing in the Grass" is one of
my favorite tunes!

-Wilson

On 10/16/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: "yeah"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Exx. of {yea} used conversationally by Englishmen of the 17th & 18th C.:
>
> 1605 Jonas Poole, in Samuel Purchas _Hakluytus Posthumus_ (rpt. Glasgow: J. MacLehose & Sons, 1905) XIII 271: They demanded, as I tooke it, if all our men were wel: I told them yea, as loud as I could.
>
> a1625 in Samuel Purchas _Purchas his Pilgrimes in Five Books_ (London: Henrie Fetherstone, 1625) II 1067: Then they asked me whether in _Portugall, the Priests were marryed?_ I told them, no. They demanded, _whether we held the Councell of Pope_ Leo _which was made at_ Nice? I told them, _yea, and that I had alreadie declared, that the great Creed was made there_.
>
> 1704 William Chillingworth _Additional Discourses of Mr. Chillingworth_ 1: Probably I should answer no....but...I answer, yea.
>
> 1708 Francis Bugg _Goliah's Head Cut Off with His Own Sword_ (London: the author) 287: I ask'd her if she had a Book intitled, _Ishmael and his Mother cast out_, &c.? She told me Yea; saying, Wilt thou buy it? Yes [sic], said I, What wilt thou have for it? _Ibid_. 295: A Clergy Man...ask'd me if I would print it. I told him Yea.
>
> ca1720 Joseph Pitts in Michael Wolfe _One Thousand Roads to Mecca_ (N.Y.: Grove Press, 1997) 109 [ref. to 1685]: He looked earnestly upon me and asked me whether I was not an Englishman? I answered, "Yea." "How came you hither?" said he...."What, are you a slave?" said he. I replied, Yes [sic].
>
> 1726 George Roberts _The Four Years Voyages of Capt. George Roberts_ (London: A. Bettesworth and J. Osborn) 200: They...ask'd me, Whether I took as far as I could see to be the Top. I told them, Yea. _Ibid._ 204: They said, Yea, that they could.
>
> 1794 Thomas Holcroft _The Adventures of Hugh Trevor_ I 56: I called, with a trembling voice, "Mary! Are you alive?" And my heart bounded with joy to hear her, though dolefully, answer, "yea."
>
> And regarding "Yay!":
> 1798 William Seward _Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons_ (London: T. Cadell jun. & W. Davies) I 120: The people answer Yea, yea, yea; King Edward, King Edward!
>
> It would be disingenuous not to observe that examples in colloquial contexts are rare. It may be, however, that spoken / jE: / was generally edited into "yes" on the erroneous assumption that it was merely a "slovenly" pronunciation of the latter. But why respelling didn't happen also to the formal "Yea" (antonym of "Nay" - early form of / nae:: /?) is
> hard to explain.
>
> JL
>
>
>
>
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-Sam'l Clemens

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