Huzzah (sometimes written hazzah; originally spelled huzza [1] [2] in most modern varieties of English hurrah or hooray) is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), "apparently a mere exclamation". [3] The dictionary does not mention any specific derivation. Whatever its origins, it has seen occasional literary use since at least the time of Shakespeare, as the first use was in 1573, according to Merriam-Webster. [4]
Huzzah may be categorised with such interjections as hoorah and hooray. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "In English, the form hurrah is literary and dignified; hooray is usual in popular acclamation".[ citation needed ]
In common usage, such as cheers at sporting events and competitions, the speaker need not make distinction, and the words are distinguished by regional dialect and accent.
The origin of the word in its various forms is not clear, but it may have been influenced by war cries from various languages: the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) suggests Norse, Dutch, Russian and Prussian words that may have played a part.
Anthropologist Jack Weatherford hypothesized that it comes from the Mongolian Huree; used by Mongol armies, and spread throughout the world during the Mongol Empire of the 13th century. The word is a praise, much like amen or hallelujah, shouted at the end of speeches or prayers. [5]
Contrary to popular belief, the word does not appear in Shakespeare's original works. Written in three parts around 1591, Shakespeare's I, II, and III Henry VI were condensed by Charles Kemble in 1888 into a single text titled, Henry VI. Though Kemble's condensed version records the last line of Act III, Scene III as, "All. Huzza ! huzza ! huzza !— Long live the King !", this line does not appear in Shakespeare's original text, but is rather Kemble's own insertion between II Henry VI, Act IV, Scenes VIII and IX.
Often incorrectly used at Renaissance Festivals and American Revolution reenactments, Huzzah was originally spelled Huzza and pronounced huz-ZAH. In fact, the correct pronunciation is something like "HOO-ZAH." [6] In the poetry and writings of the late 1700s, words like Bah (a sheep sound), Ra (the Egyptian god), and La (the musical notation) were used to rhyme with Huzza. One example can be seen in the song "Keppel Forever":
"Bonfires, bells did ring; Keppel was all the ding,
Music, Fa La La;
Windows with candles in, for all to honor him:
People aloud did sing, 'Keppel! Huzza!'" [7]
The OED notes that in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was identified as a sailor's cheer or salute, and suggests that it was possibly related to words like heeze and hissa, which are cognates of hoist .[ citation needed ]
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, three 'huzzahs' were given by British infantry before a bayonet charge, as a way of building morale and intimidating the enemy. The book Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket by military historian Richard Holmes indicates that this was given as two short 'huzzahs', followed by a third sustained one as the charge was carried out.[ citation needed ]
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically, which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, translation, etc. It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data.
The identity of the longest word in English depends on the definition of a word and of length.
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word novella derives from the Italian novella meaning a short story related to true facts.
Pussy is a term used as a noun, an adjective, and—in rare instances—a verb in the English language. It has several meanings, as slang, as euphemism, and as vulgarity. Most commonly, it is used as a noun with the meaning "cat", "coward", or "weakling". In slang usage, it can mean "vulva or vagina" and less commonly, as a form of synecdoche, meaning "sexual intercourse with a woman". Because of its multiple senses including both innocent and vulgar connotations, pussy is often the subject of double entendre.
Webster's Dictionary is any of the English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by Noah Webster (1758–1843), an American lexicographer, as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's name in his honor. "Webster's" has since become a genericized trademark in the United States for English dictionaries, and is widely used in dictionary titles.
Literal and figurative language is a distinction within some fields of language analysis, in particular stylistics, rhetoric, and semantics.
A referent is a person or thing to which a name – a linguistic expression or other symbol – refers. For example, in the sentence Mary saw me, the referent of the word Mary is the particular person called Mary who is being spoken of, while the referent of the word me is the person uttering the sentence.
Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American spelling. Many of the differences between American and British/Commonwealth English date back to a time before spelling standards were developed. For instance, some spellings seen as "American" today were once commonly used in Britain, and some spellings seen as "British" were once commonly used in the United States.
In morphology and lexicography, a lemma is the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of word forms. In English, for example, break, breaks, broke, broken and breaking are forms of the same lexeme, with break as the lemma by which they are indexed. Lexeme, in this context, refers to the set of all the inflected or alternating forms in the paradigm of a single word, and lemma refers to the particular form that is chosen by convention to represent the lexeme. Lemmas have special significance in highly inflected languages such as Arabic, Turkish, and Russian. The process of determining the lemma for a given lexeme is called lemmatisation. The lemma can be viewed as the chief of the principal parts, although lemmatisation is at least partly arbitrary.
Oorah is a battle cry common in the United States Marine Corps since the mid-20th century.
Oxford spelling is a spelling standard, named after its use by the University of Oxford, that prescribes the use of British spelling in combination with the suffix -ize in words like realize and organization instead of -ise endings.
Irregardless is a word sometimes used in place of regardless or irrespective, which has caused controversy since the early twentieth century, though the word appeared in print as early as 1795.
A pronunciation respelling for English is a notation used to convey the pronunciation of words in the English language, which do not have a phonemic orthography.
Hello is a salutation or greeting in the English language. It is first attested in writing from 1826.
A pistol is a type of handgun, characterized by a barrel with an integral chamber. The word "pistol" is derived from the Middle French pistolet, meaning a small gun or knife, and first appeared in the English language c. 1570 when early handguns were produced in Europe. In colloquial usage, the word "pistol" is often used as a generic term to describe any type of handgun, inclusive of revolvers and the pocket-sized derringers.
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