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Conference thebay::joyoflex

Title:The Joy of Lex
Notice:A Notes File even your grammar could love
Moderator:THEBAY::SYSTEM
Created:Fri Feb 28 1986
Last Modified:Mon Jun 02 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1192
Total number of notes:42769

501.0. "Yee - Hah !!!" by JANUS::CROWLE (On a clear disk you can seek forever) Mon Apr 11 1988 14:33

    Well, something like that, anyway. It's a favourite exclamation
    used a lot by the secretary of our hardware group in the subject
    line of mail messages - but - she doesn't know what it means!
    
    What does it mean? Where does it originate?
    
    -- brian
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
DateLines
501.1Rawhide?PAMOLA::RECKARDJon Reckard, 381-0878, ZKO3-2/T63Mon Apr 11 1988 14:447
    I've heard it as a brief and emphatic form of "Git along, little dogies."
To the accompaniment of a cracking whip, the sound of cattle moving and mooing,
guitar, harmonica, crackling campfire, howling coyotes, and/or some combination
of any of these.  (At least in the theme song of a 60's American TV Western.)
    To be pronounced as:  (sort of)
    Yeeeee (rising in volume and pitch into the falsetto)
    HAH''''' (many accent marks).
501.2this is whewre it might have startedMARKER::KALLISWhy is everyone getting uptight?Mon Apr 11 1988 16:495
    I've been told that "Yeeee-HAW!" is the Rebel; Yell -- that is,
    the cry of the soldiers and supporters of the Confederate States
    of America.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
501.3from tv too!TWEED::B_REINKEwhere the sidewalk endsMon Apr 11 1988 17:165
    It was also used extensively in the once popular tv program
    "the Dukes of Hazard". I have two sons who still use the expression
    years after the show has gone off the air.
    
    Bonnie
501.4yeeee-HAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!VIA::RANDALLback in the notes life againMon Apr 11 1988 23:368
    Damn straight it's the rebel yell, imported to the western US with
    the thousands of disenfranchised Southerners who migrated west
    seeking land and gold in the years following the war. 
    
    And this cowgirl can do a good one when the Red Sox score the
    go-ahead run in the ninth inning . . .
    
    --bonnie
501.5Sounds like ...RAVEN1::MKENNEDYTue Apr 12 1988 15:547
In plowing parlance, one says "gee" when the mule is directed left and 
"haw" when it is to turn right.

Chubby Checker knew this.

Moffatt Kennedy
Greenville, SC
501.6All of the above?VALKYR::RUSTwas ::RAVANTue Apr 12 1988 16:4416
    'Tis definitely the rebel yell, which probably migrated to the American
    West after the war. As to where it came from - the South being
    primarily agricultural, there would certainly be a need for a signal
    that would carry for some distance, whether calling the boys back
    to the house for dinner, signalling the mules, or summoning the
    hawgs. (An alternate theory: it's derived from "Jehu" in some fashion.
    I prefer the hog-calling idea, though.)

    Or it *may* be an instinctive response to that intense joy of living
    one feels when on the brink of danger... I don't recall having heard
    anyone else give the Yell prior to the first time *I* burst into one.

    Or maybe not; somehow I can't imagine a bunch of Neanderthals
    shrieking "Yeee-Hah!" 

    -b
501.7both ways at onceVIA::RANDALLback in the notes life againTue Apr 12 1988 19:106
    re: .5
    
    If you yell "GHEE --- HAAWWW!" while you're plowing, you will
    have one confused mule.
    
    --bonnie
501.8In the pluralDECSIM::HEILMANMy paging file, it is full of eelsWed Apr 13 1988 00:325
    A local Boston band, the Fools, has a song out (recorded live) in
    which they can be heard to encourage the crowd "Lemme hear some
    Yee-haws out there".
    
    The song by the way is "Life sucks and then you die".
501.9Semper TyrannusRIGAZI::SPERANDIOMon Jul 24 1989 23:2911
re: .8
...that's probably just what those Bluebellies were thinking as they cowered 
with the hair on their necks standing straight up.  Somewhere out there in the
mist, or in those trees they would meet death.  And the spectral sound of the
Rebel Yell would be the last sound they would hear.

I agree with .2 and .4 that the Rebel Yell lives on with this expression. I can
remember moving South as a kid and being surprised by this yell which all the 
Southern kids made when playing.  Do kids in N.E. make this sound?

-Skeezix
501.10MomSSDEVO::EGGERSAnybody can fly with an engine.Tue Jul 25 1989 02:425
    The only person I've ever heard do a rebel yell is my Mother. She very
    effectively called me out of the woods with it once at a summer camp,
    much to my embarrassment, when all the bells and calls of the others
    simply didn't "get through". One of the other campers said, "J..., what
    animal was that?!" to which I had to reply, "My Mother".