last night, i suppose.
first of all: i did not cut, burn or maim myself! huzzah!
dinner was, surprisingly, uneventful (in a good way). we managed
to cram 13 people, relatively comfortably, into our living room/kitchen and force-feed them our spinach-pesto lasagna. we set the scene with candles, wine so fancy i can't even tell you anything about it, and fresh-baked rosemary ciabatta bread and focaccia, served alongside some seasoned olive oil with roasted garlic. after the lasagna, we served up our homemade butterscotch bars, which are - surprisingly, and delightfully - pretty good for you as well as being scrumptious.overall, i learned:
- that the guys at the wine shop on the corner are friendly. very friendly. and persistent.
- that there is such a thing as too much sauce.
- that anne is still alive (yay!).
- that rachel has friends (she brought two!)
- several current slang words... god, i'm over the hill (but did you know that "brick" means cold?)
cut to: this morning. ext midtown. snow plopping down in bazillions of huge chunks, like i didn't think it ever did in new york. most people would look at weather like that and opt to take the subway to work. i, on the other hand, am not "most people". i am what i like to think of as special. other people have called it "unique", "psychotic", and "not too bright." anyway, i decided to walk to work. as it turns out, the ribboned ring around my "waterproof" hat is "less than waterproof", and i showed up to work mostly dry under my sopping wet coat, but with a ring of moisture around the top of my head like a sweaty crown. it was hot. of course, twenty minutes after i arrived, the snow stopped altogether. good thing i left when i did, huh?
1 comment:
November 8, 2000
huzzah
Chuck Brady wrote:
My wife and I recently went to Colonial Williamsburg and noticed that the interpreters shouted Huzzah, huzzah when cheering something. When, and how, did huzzah degenerate into hurrah and then today's hurray?
Huzza or huzzah is first attested in 1573. According to a number of writers in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was originally a sailor's cheer or salute: "It was derived from the marine and the shouts the seamen make when friends come aboard or go off." (North, Examen, 1740). It might be related to the earlier hauling or hoisting cries, heisau! and hissa!, as in these citations:"With 'howe! hissa!' then they [the sailors] cry, 'What, howe, mate! thow stondyst to ny, Thy felow may nat hale the by.'" (The Pilgrims sea-voyage and sea-sickness, 1430) and "The marynals began to heis up the sail, cryand heisau heisau." (Complaynt of Scotland, 1549). There is an old word heeze or heize, meaning 'to raise', which has cognates in both the North and West Germanic languages.
The latest citations I found for huzzah are from the 19th century. Dickens used it in Oliver Twist (1837-39): "Strokes, thick and heavy, rattled upon the door and lower window-shutters as he ceased to speak, and a loud huzzah burst from the crowd." And Mark Twain used it in Tom Sawyer (1876): "...the population massed itself..., and swept magnificently up the main street roaring huzzah after huzzah!"
Hurrah and hurray first appeared late in the 17th century: "Our Capt. ordered all his Guns to fire; at which they all of them (which were about twenty) fil'd the very Heavens with Hurras and Shouts." (J. Dunton, Letter from New-England, 1686). It is clearly a later version of huzzah, possibly influenced by Middle High German hurr and hurrâ, interjections which are imperative forms of the verb meaning 'to rush or hurry'. Swedish, Danish, Dutch, and Russian all have similar shouts which were used in hunting and chasing. Presumably, the hunters shouted hurra when they spotted their quarry, and the word came to express a sense of triumph.
However hurrah replaced huzzah as a cry of praise or exultation, it had pretty much happened by the 19th century. Hooray is a variant on hurrah that first appeared in 19th century America, along with hurroo and hoorah. The OED says, "In English the form hurrah is literary and dignified; hooray is usual in popular acclamation." The Web site of the Royal Navy notes that the navy "cheers hooray, not hurrah."
I will end with a quotation from Emerson: "They can do the hurras, the placarding, the flags -- and the voting, if it is a fair day." You will read this on the 8th of November. I am writing on the 7th, hoping to be able to join the huzzahs and hurrahs on the morrow.
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