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Rodney
Guest
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| Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 1:17 am
Post subject: "Heavens to Betsy"? |
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I have just come across this exclamation of surprise.
What are it's roots?
anybody?
Thanks. |
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Don Phillipson
Guest
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| Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 1:27 am
Post subject: Re: "Heavens to Betsy"? |
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"Rodney" <rodney@touch88gum.com.au> wrote in message
news:427d1354@news.eftel.com...
| Quote: | I have just come across this exclamation of surprise.
What are it's roots?
|
American/folkloric. Google might tell you it
occurs in Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn.
Respectable women in 1850 felt a need for slang
expressions uncontaminated by the blasphemy
and sexual language used by swearing males.
The problem recurs elsewhere, e.g. "Paul Temple"
(a fictional character, star of English radio detective
mysteries in the 1940s) needed an innocuous slang
expression of surprise, so was endowed with
"By Timothy!" -- guaranteed to fit the need but
offend absolutely no one (and used by no one else
either.)
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada) |
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Rodney
Guest
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| Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 2:00 am
Post subject: Re: "Heavens to Betsy"? |
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Wonderful Don!
Thank you kindly.
"Don Phillipson" <d.phillipson@ttrryytteell.com> wrote in message news:2J8fe.1334$pi1.8133@newscontent-01.sprint.ca...
| "Rodney" <rodney@touch88gum.com.au> wrote in message
| news:427d1354@news.eftel.com...
|
| > I have just come across this exclamation of surprise.
| > What are it's roots?
|
| American/folkloric. Google might tell you it
| occurs in Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn.
| Respectable women in 1850 felt a need for slang
| expressions uncontaminated by the blasphemy
| and sexual language used by swearing males.
|
| The problem recurs elsewhere, e.g. "Paul Temple"
| (a fictional character, star of English radio detective
| mysteries in the 1940s) needed an innocuous slang
| expression of surprise, so was endowed with
| "By Timothy!" -- guaranteed to fit the need but
| offend absolutely no one (and used by no one else
| either.)
| --
| Don Phillipson
| Carlsbad Springs
| (Ottawa, Canada)
|
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Donna Richoux
Guest
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| Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 3:31 am
Post subject: Re: "Heavens to Betsy"? |
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Don Phillipson <d.phillipson@ttrryytteell.com> wrote:
| Quote: | "Rodney" <rodney@touch88gum.com.au> wrote in message
news:427d1354@news.eftel.com...
I have just come across this exclamation of surprise.
What are it's roots?
American/folkloric. Google might tell you it
occurs in Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn.
|
Except it doesn't. The earliest Michael Quinion found was 1914. He says
the origins are completely unknown. Article:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-hea1.htm
I found that piece, by the way, not through Google, but through our own
AUE Website, whose Quick Search box is an excellent way to find reliable
information on colorful words.
| Quote: | Respectable women in 1850 felt a need for slang
expressions uncontaminated by the blasphemy
and sexual language used by swearing males.
|
And, males in the presence of women needed innocuous exclamations as
well. And males who were restrained by religious prohibitions against
swearing. That's the source of it, really -- one of the Ten Commandments
prohibits using the Lord's name in vain, and that was generally
considered to be a ban on swearing.
But whatever this phrase was an alteration of, is lost to us now.
--
Best wishes -- Donna Richoux |
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Richard Maurer
Guest
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| Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 4:55 am
Post subject: Re: "Heavens to Betsy"? |
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Don Phillipson wrote about "Heavens to Betsy":
American/folkloric. Google might tell you it
occurs in Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn.
Donna Richoux wrote:
Except it doesn't. The earliest Michael Quinion found was 1914.
He says the origins are completely unknown. Article:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-hea1.htm
But that article was written wwwaaay back in nascent web days.
Today we can see that it was used in 1878 in the form
"Heavens-to-Betsy"
Cal Culver and the Devil,
by Rose Terry Cooke: pp. 574-586
Title:Harper's new monthly magazine. / Volume 57, Issue 340
Publisher:Harper & Bros.Publication
Date:September 1878
City:New YorkPages:962 page images in vol.
(see p582) [1]
It is used in 1885 in the form
"Heavens and Betsey"
Author: Halsted, Sarah D.
Title: Byways and Bygones
Publication Info.: Overland monthly and Out West magazine.
/ Volume 6, Issue 33, Sept 1885, pp.285-290
Collection: Making of America Journal Articles
(see p288)
Still, not much of a clue about origins. There was a story
about a Betsey who struggled for 30 years to get her
family ready to go to heaven.
[1]
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABK4014-0057-80
-- ---------------------------------------------
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(Word of the day -- sphygmic) |
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John Dean
Guest
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| Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 5:00 am
Post subject: Re: "Heavens to Betsy"? |
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Donna Richoux wrote:
| Quote: | Don Phillipson <d.phillipson@ttrryytteell.com> wrote:
"Rodney" <rodney@touch88gum.com.au> wrote in message
news:427d1354@news.eftel.com...
I have just come across this exclamation of surprise.
What are it's roots?
American/folkloric. Google might tell you it
occurs in Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn.
Except it doesn't. The earliest Michael Quinion found was 1914. He
says the origins are completely unknown. Article:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-hea1.htm
|
Heavens to Murgatroyd! I can't believe Michael let slip the opportunity
to poke the OED with a stick:
"1892 R. T. Cooke Huckleberries fr. New England Hills 173 'Heavens to
Betsey!' gasped Josiah."
Google indicates there are a couple of early C20 or late C19 westerns
with the phrase stored on Gutenberg.
--
John "Exit, stage left" Dean
Oxford |
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Poet Fury
Guest
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| Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 7:44 pm
Post subject: Re: "Heavens to Betsy"? |
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On Sun, 8 May 2005 03:17:48 +0800, Rodney wrote:
| Quote: | I have just come across this exclamation of surprise.
What are it's roots?
|
And is Betsy's last name Murgatroyd?
--
http://www.newvague.com/tdis/index.html
Of course it's music. It has notes in it, doesn't it? |
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