[lit-ideas] Re: Hello! (and Carry On)
- From: david ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2018 13:06:08 -0800
On Nov 24, 2018, at 6:53 AM, epostboxx@xxxxxxxx wrote:
Although (as a die-hard Wodehouse fan) I do use the salutation 'What ho!' in
addressing my correspondence to a friend in North Yorkshire, I must confess
to be unsure of its precise meaning.
I have taken it to be roughly synonymous with 'What's up?' or perhaps 'What
are you up to?' - indicating an interest in my correspondent's current
condition and activities.
If this (or one of these) meaning(s) is correct, then I would take a 'World
What-Ho Day' to be going a step further than 'World Hello Day', in that one
is not merely greeting those one meets, but also enquiring into their
condition, plans and activities (this showing interest in them as particular
individuals and not merely token specimens of 'the crooked timber of
humanity.’)
I take “what ho,” like hello, to be derived from hunting and other outdoor
shouts. View halloo and so on.
Ho is not hard to explain—land ho…way of emphasizing meaning when the wind is
whipping words away. (See apocraphal tale of how Friday Harbor, Washington got
its name. Man on boat, “What place is this?” Man on shore, “Friday.”)
The web has all sorts of interesting speculation on how Wodehouse came to the
expression. This, for example:
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/77151/what-ho-of-bertie-wooster ;
<
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/77151/what-ho-of-bertie-wooster>
We must move on. Possibly to kibble. I refer what dogs eat as, “kibble.”
Until yesterday I didn’t know why. Apparently a kibble was a bucket, used in
mines, and somehow what was in the bucket—broken up stuff—became synonymous
with the container itself and, by extension, broken up bits of stuff became
“kibble.” Why is this of any interest? In the New York Times Science section
there is a piece all about how the kilogram has been re-defined. I can’t say I
understood the math any more than I understood the math of how paper crumpling
has an interesting constant that may reveal something about chaotic ways of
being—just ask the Drones, was my thought—so my poor mind latched onto the fact
that the previous way of arriving at a kilogram involved something called a
Kibble Balance. Named after a man, Kibble.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/science/kilogram-physics-meas
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/26/science/crumple-paper-math.html
I recommend today’s obit of Lady Trumpington. Now that’s a life!
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/obituaries/lady-trumpington-dead.html
Today in class I get to talk about sex in the nineteenth century. Students
usually like this topic. Of course I now have to avoid heteronormativity and
confess that I know nothing about sex in marginalized and indigenous peoples.
Well, very little. The old, (almost) sex-free Euro-Centric narrative was
difficult—trying to get students interested in Napoleon, the Concert of
Vienna, the Franco-Prussian war and the Commune of Paris. Then it was, gotta
do the whole world, with an emphasis on Women’s contributions. Now it’s gotta
do the whole world, with an emphasis on everyone but white males. The history
of fish, anyone? Anyone?
Carry on,
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
Other related posts:
- » [lit-ideas] Re: Hello! (and Carry On) - david ritchie
