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| Whistler’s Harmony of Pink and Gray – 1881 Yes, I chose it because of the year and its prettiness, not because of any other relevance. 😉 |
I know, right? You’re thinking “Her word of the week is what? Seriously? This chick is losing it…” 😉 But hopefully you’ll read on to see what in the world inspired me to write about what, LOL.
Last week as I was editing an upcoming WhiteFire title, I read a line where one of the characters says “What’s up?” The year is 1921, the phrase sounds modern to me, so I thought I had better look it up (even though I trust this author implicitly, things slip by us all, right?) So I tapped what into the etymology dictionary and found quite a few idioms that were older than I’d thought!
The word as a question, as a “What did you say?” dates all the way back to 1300. That doesn’t really surprise me. But I was quite surprised to see that “what’s-his-name” dates from 1690! I would have thought that a more modern phrase, personally. (The variant “what’s-his-face,” though, is from the 1960s, LOL.)
The phrase “what for,” as in “give him the what-for” is from 1873, which apparently, interestingly, came about as a smart reply to people asking the question “What for?”
And finally, the one I was looking up. “What’s up?” made its debut right around 1881. Which did surprise me a bit, I confess. It didn’t give me any idea where it came from (like that handy explanation of the what-for…) but it’s always so much fun to discover a use is older than I anticipated!
I hope everyone has a lovely week!
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.
Definitely surprised at what you found. WOW.