[Ads-l] Hooah !

[Jonathan Lighter]

Earliest?

1983 _Sunday Oregonian_ (Portland, Ore.) (Nov. 27)  (Northwest Mag.) 6:
"This hooah attitude is very important to us....This is a damned fired-up
bunch of [Army Rangers]."  ...Hooah describes the Ranger style.

Now alleged to stand for "HUA !": "Heard, Understood, and Acknowledged !"
 I bet.

But cf. for possible subliminal inspiration:

1970 Edwin Starr "War" (song) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQHUAJTZqF0
 : War ! Hooh ! Yeah ! What is it good for ?

"Hooyah!" is the Navy and Coast Guard version. (I'm not making this up. The
Defense Secretary used it in a post this week.) It beats the Army by a few
months:

1983 _Fremont [Neb.] Tribune_ (Jan. 7) A2: His Navy SEAL...team stood in
the balcony and shouted a thundering "Hoo-Yah!"

"Oorah!" for the Marines:

1984 _Pensacola News_ (Apr. 26) 4D: Amidst the oorah and high-and-tights of
Corry Station are three [female] Marines who don't wear the trademark
haircut.


On Fri, Aug 5, 2005 at 10:27 AM James Smith <jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       James Smith <jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Hooah !
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Been a while, but I recall vocalizing something like
> "ahOOah" in the Marines back in the late 60's.  It was
> not used as a question, was not used as part of a
> sentence in any way but was a positive response or
> simply a yell.  No one ever explained it, but I took
> it as an imitation of the sound of a claxon or, if
> drawn out, of a foghorn.
>
>
>
> --- Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
>
> > An acroetymythonym ?  Things have gotten so dumb,
> > who can tell anymore?
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_slang#A  :
>
> > BTW, Marines do not and *must*
> > not say "Hooah ! " They must instead say "Oorah ! "
> > though I'm not sure that it's used as a question
> > yet.
> >
> > JL
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> James D. SMITH                 |If history teaches anything
> South SLC, UT                  |it is that we will be sued
> jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com     |whether we act quickly and decisively
>                                |or slowly and cautiously.
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-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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