In old books (and occasionally new books), you see the word “Why” used to indicate a pause or emphasis in dialogue.
For example, from 1952:
“Why, how perfectly simple!” she said to herself. “The way to save Wilbur’s life is to play a trick on Zuckerman. “If I can fool a bug,” thought Charlotte, “I can surely fool a man. People are not as smart as bugs.”
That line about people and bugs was cute, but what really jumped out at me was the “Why.” I don’t think I’ve ever ever heard anyone use “Why” in that way in conversation, but I see it all the time in books, and every time it’s jarring.
What’s the deal? Is it that people used to talk that way? Or is a Wasp thing, some regional speech pattern that was captured in books because it was considered standard conversational speech? I suppose one way to learn more would be to watch a bunch of old movies. I could sort of imagine Jimmy Stewart beginning his sentences with “Why” all the time.
Does anyone know more?
P.S. I used to live in the same building as the guy who discovered the etymology of O.K. He did that around 1940 but was still around sixty years later. I bet he would’ve known all about “Why.”
Using “why” as an interjection is an old-fashioned thing. My intuition is that it’s more common in British than American English, but is definitely declining in use in both populations. It’s also possibly more frequent in particular regions – e.g. southern US, “why I do declare!” – but as far as I know, there’s not been a lot of work looking at the geographic or dialectal spread of the construction. The Oxford English Dictionary has citations of “why” being used as an interjection in question contexts as far back as the 1500s (e.g. “Why, what evil hath he done?”, and in declarative contexts as far back as the 1700s (e.g. “Why, I think she cannot be above six foot two inches high”).
The question came up on the English stack exchange.
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/16762/where-does-the-use-of-why-as-an-interjection-come-from
According to the reply, it dates back to the 16th century. I can also think of an example from Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus,
Why, there they are both, baked in that pie;
Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,
What is the true etymology of OK? I thought this still was a contentious issue.
My grandfather, who grew up in rural Minnesota (born around 1930 I think), said that all the time. Usually you say it when you’re about to express some perhaps surprising idea.
“Why, it would take 12 men to lift that!”
“Why, that’s the most ridiculous fish story I’ve ever heard!”
I think it was a pretty common expression in the 50s, I’m sure there are old movies you could watch where people use it that way.
English.stackexchange.com has an interesting discussion of this:
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/16762/where-does-the-use-of-why-as-an-interjection-come-from
This is, after all, E. B. White, of Strunk and White, so you question his style at your peril. I grew up in Wisconsin in the 1950s, and my recollection is that people talked like that all the time. I never associated the word with the question form of “why,” since everybody I knew pronounced it “wye,” but my Webster’s spells it “why” and documents exactly White’s usage.
And (to your P.S.) there are a lot of etymologies of O.K., none of them convincingly documented.
Strunk and White is generally regarded by experts on language as atrocious grammar advice (though fortunately they seem generally to have ignored their own advice – aside from the platitudes). See
http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/50years.pdf
and the usually excellent blog “Language log”: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/
It does not sound at all unusual to me–I am pretty sure I use it and yes it is wye, not why in my speach. I have wanted to write “Y occasionally as it has the correct sound to me
But then, whales and Wales sound differently to me. Apparently in some dialects they are not.
I remember an SNL skit that took place in the late 1930s that used it three times:
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/86/86gbackpage.phtml
“Why, I oughtta pound you!”
Also, you can picture Jimmy Stewart saying it because the phrase was used that way 14 times in It’s a Wonderful Life:
http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/i/its-a-wonderful-life-script.html
Also, I wonder if people in the future will think it’s strange that many people today use “Well” as an interjection.
Why, I’ve never seen a post as unrelated to statistical modeling as this!
Good to read this post. I’ve always wondered about the first line of this comic http://theoatmeal.com/pl/minor_differences4/accents
Persistent interpolation of “like” still sounds odd to me, except, like, it’s been a million years since people started talking that way.
Nick:
There are lots of speech patterns that seem odd to me. What was particularly odd to me about “Why” was that I don’t recall ever hearing it in conversation, but I see it in books all the time. Typically as in the quote above, where removing the “Why” would have no detectable effect (to me) on the content.
I think it’s been replaced by “Well,” which also maybe marks a transition in our culture from discovery to nagging.
And, in American english our acronyms are all caps, e.g. NATO, not Nato.
What about “Alas” and “Hark”; who uses those?
Same with indeed! In writing it seems to do the trick, but would seem incredibly pretentious in conversation.
Shakespeare indeed: Why, man he doth bestride the narrow world. Like a colossus!
OED says has two definitions of this sense:
a) ” As an expression of surprise (sometimes only momentary or slight; sometimes involving protest), either in reply to a remark or question, or on perceiving something unexpected.”
First firm attestation:
1581 (Conferences held in the Tower of London): Why, is not Saint Iames Epistle called the Catholike Epistle of Saint Iames. How do you then denie it to be Canonicall?
b) “Emphasizing or calling more or less abrupt attention to the statement following (as in the apodosis of a sentence), in opposition to a possible or vaguely apprehended doubt or objection.”
The first attestation is 1545: “T. Raynald (Byrth of Mankynde 90) When she feleth greate ache in the inner parte of the eyes‥, ye reste of the body taken as it were with a werynesse without any outwarde apparent cause: why these thynges portende‥aborcement to be at hande.”
I had to look up “aborcement”. It’s an obsolete form of “abortion”.
The OED example “Why, is it not..” suggests that the “Why” is a challenge to a preceding sentiment. For example:
Q: “What is a post like this doing on a statistical modeling blog?”
A: “Why? Are matters of language forbidden from the discussions of statisticians?”
I can imagine that the question mark could easily morph into a comma; And the meaning of “Why” could change from a specific challenge to a general expression of surprise.
Re-reading some books from the 1930s I was struck by the frequency in dialogue of
“I say, …”
This wasn’t a metalinguistic comment. It served the same function as “Why, ” of getting attention before delivering the real content. In British spoken English at least it is not obsolete, but appears to me to be now even more of a upper class marker or mannerism than it was a few decades ago.
On this side of the pond, those upper class marker(s) are noticed less – at least consciously.
For instance, I originally the cultural nuisance in Fisher’s Lady and the Tea Tasting Experiment (cheap chinaware requires the milk be put in first?).
Setting aside matters of English, I sometimes have problems with K? speak. By “nuisance” do you mean “nuance”?
I’ve heard it used in the UK, but infrequently and always by women. It features in teh Jacobean play A Woman Killed by Kindness.
As to “alas”, there’s a Pathan song that was adopted in translation as their regimental march by several units in the British Army that goes “There’s a boy across the river with a bottom like a peach, but Alas! I cannot swim”.
Sadly the modern replacements are relatively inelegant.
http://www.asylum.com/2009/11/18/10-annoying-phrases-that-serve-no-purpose/
In Olde English possibly it was used as verbal punctuation that a question or something surprising was about to be said.
The Spanish, for example, use an inverted ? at the sentence start in written work.
In past polite English speaking society the opening words chosen mirrored the class of the person speaking and who they were speaking to.
It also meant that words lost when first butting into a conversation did not matter.
The words did serve a purpose.
I thought someone should point out that “Why, I oughta….” was popularized or at least widely seen in Three Stooges episodes.