rebel yell and yeehaw

[Jonathan Lighter]

Looks like they're giving up on "Yeehaw!":

http://www.civilwarnews.com/archive/articles/09/april/rebelyell_040902.htm

JL

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 3:47 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: rebel yell and yeehaw
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I was struck by the failure of all but two or three earwitnesses to
> even attempt to spell out their versions of "the" rebel yell.
>
> That's two or three out of scores and scores of references.
>
> It's also typical nineteenth-century vagueness.
>
> It's also striking, though less so, that relatively few writers even
> bothered to characterize the yell in any particular way. Words like
> hoot, howl, yowl, rasp, shriek, halloo, etc., occur only infrequently
> - even as the writers attempt to differentiate the yell from the
> "Yankee hurrah."
>
> An interesting point about "Yeehaw/hah!" is that the stylized scream
> it represents has largely displaced, in current use, earlier stylized
> expressions of enthusiasm like "Wahoo!" "Yahoo!" and, of course,
> "Whoopee!"
>
> Also that it is retrofitted, sometimes passionately, as by James's
> correspondent, to the Civil War.
>
> I wonder what Civil War re-enactors yell.
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 10:48 PM, James Harbeck <jharbeck at sympatico.ca> wrote:
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
>> Subject:      Re: rebel yell and yeehaw
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Thanks for all that research and insight! The trail of yee-haw looks
>> just a little messier now than it did before... but thanks to this
>> Jim Redman dude, I've had Billy Idol running through my head for the
>> last couple of days
>> (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdphvuyaV_I&ob=av2e).
>>
>> James Harbeck.
>>
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>
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