"Yay long"

Sun Sep 29 04:45:00 UTC 2013

Here is an excerpt from one of the articles in 1964 by William Morris.
OCR errors are present.

Date: May 18, 1964
Newspaper: Omaha World Herald
Column Name: Word, Wit and Wisdom
Article Title: Yea, Long or High, Means Exactly What Hands Say
Author: William Morris
Page 11
Newspaper Location: Omaha, Nebraska

[Begin excerpt]
Q. I have noticed a word which doesn't appear in general use and which
doesn't appear in the unabridged dictionary. It is "yea" or "yay,"
always accompanied by a gesture with both hands. For example, one
might say, "I need a piece of paper yea long." It seems to express an
approximate measure of length. Do you have any idea of its derivation?
-Dick Dragon, Washington, D. C.

A. This is an expression that I first encountered four or five years
ago, though I have heard it a number of times more recently. It has,
so far as I know, appeared only once in a dictionary—the Dictionary of
American Slang by Harold Wentworth and Stuart Flexner. It gave this
definition: "Yea big or yea high. 1. This big, or this high,
accompanied with the spreading of the hands to indicate the size; very
large or very high, overwhelmingly large or tall. 2. Not very big or
high.—A sophisticated fad phrase since about 1955."

So we have here a remarkably versatile word, one which can mean either
"overwhelmingly large" or "not very big." As Humpty-Dumpty said in
"Through the Looking Glass, "When I use a word, it means just what I
choose it to mean—neither more nor less." It appears that
Humpty-Dumpty and our scientists may have quite a bit in common—yea
much, so to speak.
[End excerpt]

On Sat, Sep 28, 2013 at 9:57 PM, Jim Parish <jparish at siue.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jim Parish <jparish at SIUE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Yay long"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Joel S. Berson wrote:
>> Did Jim Parish or his communicant see "yay" in print, or is it a
>> rendering of something merely spoken?
>>
>> I, like a couple of others, would have spelled it "yea".
>
> I don't recall whether I've ever seen it in print, unless perhaps in a
> letter from my brother; but "yay" has always been the spelling I've
> assigned to it. More, I can see someone reading "yay" and pronouncing it
> /jai/, as my friend did; I can't see that with the spelling "yea". I'll
> check with both of them and report back.
>
> Jim Parish
>
>
>>
>> How about from "yea, adv.", "3. Used to introduce a statement,
>> phrase, or word, stronger or more emphatic than that immediately
>> preceding: = 'indeed'; 'and more': = yes adv. 4"?  In the example of
>> "yay long", an adverb preceding an adjective and intensifying it?
>>
>> Joel
>>
>> At 9/28/2013 08:19 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>> 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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>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>>>
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>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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>>
>>
>
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