"Yay long"

[Jonathan Lighter]

I too instinctively spell it "yea."

So what?

If it's from OE "yea," why did it take a thousand years to appear in print?

JL


On Sat, Sep 28, 2013 at 7:23 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Yay long"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sep 28, 2013, at 7:09 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>
> > Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yea) traces this back to OE,
> then Proto-Germanic and PIE, undifferentiated from "yea" meaning yes.
> >
> > The OED speculates that "yay" comes from "yea."
> >
> > Benjamin Barrett
> > Seattle, WA
>
> Now that you mention it, I've always spelled the adverb (or visualized it
> spelled) "yea", not "yay".  Although I suppose if it's a very big fish it
> could be both.
>
> LH
> >
> > Learn Ainu! https://sites.google.com/site/aynuitak1/videos
> >
> > On Sep 28, 2013, at 2:37 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Bugs Bunny used it. He's neither black nor human. I believe the phrase
> was
> >> "Oh, about yay by yay," with appropriate gestures.
> >>
> >> I don't know the the title or the date of the cartoon, but it was
> probably
> >> in the early '50s.
> >>
> >> To judge from GB and NewspaperArchive.com, it seems to be very rare in
> >> print.
> >>
> >> JL
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sat, Sep 28, 2013 at 3:06 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu
> >wrot=
> >> e:
> >>
> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>> -----------------------
> >>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> >>> Subject:      Re: "Yay long"
> >>>
> >>>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> >> ------
> >>>
> >>> On Sep 28, 2013, at 12:57 PM, W Brewer wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> My Chapman's 1986 calls it "A sort of demonstrative adverb used with
> >>>> adjectives of size, height, extent, etc. and often accompanied by a
> han=
> >> d
> >>>> gesture indicating size". 1950s & esp black. "To this extent; this;
> so"=
> >> .
> >>>> Spells it <yea> (YAY).
> >>>>
> >>> In the old days, Charles Fillmore used to point out that "yay" is the
> one
> >>> word that can't be sensibly uttered over the phone. (Other
> demonstratives
> >>> have anaphoric uses, but "yay" doesn't, in contexts like "The fish I
> caug=
> >> ht
> >>> was {this/that/yay} big.  And you could even say "The agreement is this
> >>> close to being signed" without prior mention of what "this" is, but not
> >>> "The agreement is yay close to being signed" without my being able to
> see
> >>> you holding your fingers apart=E5=8E=83ay much.
> >>>
> >>> Of course that was before iChat, Skype, and other picture phone
> >>> conversations.
> >
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>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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