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A character in D.H. Lawrence's novel Women in Love (published 1920) calls out, "Shu-hu!" to hail her sister in a crowded place.

This must be the same as "yoo hoo". What is the source of this exclamation?

RegDwigнt
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Tess
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5 Answers5

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The Oxford English Dictionary dates yoo-hoo to 1924, as noted by the American Dialect Society, and compares it to yo-ho, originally a nautical phrase also sometimes used in yo-heave-ho.

Their first documented use of yo-ho is from 1769 in William Falconer's An universal dictionary of the marine:

Hola-ho, a cry which answers to yoe-hoe.

Yo-ho derives from two interjections. Yo: an exclamation of incitement or a warning, first documented around 1420. And ho: "an exclamation expressing, according to intonation, surprise, admiration, exultation (often ironical), triumph, taunting" from before 1400, and also "a sailor's cry in heaving or hauling".

Hugo
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It's doubtful there is a single documented "source". If it was already part of American vernacular, it may have shown up in several publications almost simultaneously. Pinpointing the first use in print does not really tell us the "source" because the publication did not coin the exclamation.

The American Dialect Society's Dialect Notes, Volume 5 in 1927 records that it is used to call attention (p280). In 1919, William La Vare's Up the Mazaruni for Diamonds uses it for that purpose. The earliest I could find was from c. 1916 in The Vassar miscellany monthly.

The obscurity of these texts appears to indicate that there was no publication responsible for disseminating the exclamation's use. Someone used the expression at some point (perhaps a variation of "yo-ho" or "you-who" or any other of the myriad plausible, but unsubstantiated, explanations) and it caught on.

Zairja
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  • Be wary of Google's dates, especially with snippets. Often their metadata is wrong and they run several editions together. The OED lists Dialect Notes volume 5 as their first quotation, but say 1924 not 1918. However, here's confirmation of La Vare 1919. – Hugo Aug 22 '12 at 20:29
  • @Hugo Thanks for the heads-up. I'll definitely keep an eye out. I fixed the Dialect date based on its published date in the book. – Zairja Aug 23 '12 at 01:18
  • Zairja, I didn't mean "source" in the sense of a source text or document. I was wondering about the phrase's origins in general and in any form. – Tess Sep 01 '12 at 23:57
  • @Tess In that case I'd defer to Hugo's answer. If you go back far enough, it may stem from a natural expression, but this claim is unsupported. – Zairja Sep 02 '12 at 12:59
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I've traced the origin of yoo-hoo to the 19th century as a generic exclamation and to the 1910s as a call-out.

Yoo-hoo first appears in The Life and Adventures of Jack of the Mill: A Story of the Middle Ages by William Howitt, Chapter 5, from 1844. The cry appears to be one of several sounds Jack makes to his donkeys Ben and Timothy, as well as other animals:

He snapped his fingers at Ben, who laid down his long ears, and gave a sidelong grin in token of sympathy; cried a loud "Yoo-hoo! yoo-hoo!" to Timothy, who limped along before him on the eternal hunt after whatever came within the field of nosability; whistled to the squirrels that ran up the trees at his approach, and then sung aloud to his own fancy. (p. 14 - 15)

This seems more in the spirit of exclamation and crops up in a few other 19th century texts, like Christie Johnstone by Charles Reade (1859):

Then all the fishboys struck up a dismal chant of victory. "Yoo-hoo! -- Custy's won the day! Beeny's scair-tit," going up on the last syllable.

The phrase appears again in a more expected usage (getting someone's attention) in "Those Shocking City Editors" from the newspaper Kansas City Star (1 October 1912):

I think that the ethics of journalism in a Spanish-speaking country requires the city editor to wave a handkerchief from the window at the reporter as he passes and say 'yoo-hoo,' but of this I am not certain.

Yoo-hoo also appears as a call-out in a short bit in the Kalamazoo Gazette, 8 January 1913:

Oh, Skin-nay; yoo-hoo! Come on over with your sled and run's fast as you can. Th' coastin' on Augstin's hill's bully. Honest 'tis.

By 1921, the utterance became the title of a song by vaudevillian Al Jolson, Yoo-hoo, both published (JSTOR) and recorded (YouTube) in 1921. Here's the first part of the chorus:

You'll hear me call-ing YOO-HOO,

'Neath your win-dow some sweet day

You'll hear me call-ing YOO-HOO,

And you'll know I'm home to stay,

So with that context, yoo-hoo as an exclamation could have appeared in the 19th century and been current as a way to get attention in the 1910s.

TaliesinMerlin
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    It also appears as a sailors' shout in Edward Clodd, George Crabbe: a Biography (1865): "Then above the hideous rasping of the North Sea breakers on the shingle coast, the roat of the "Shipwash," the whistling of the piercing wind from seaward, would be hard the hearty cheer and "yoo-hoo" of the sailors a they plunged their yawl into the bounding foam, ..." – Sven Yargs May 05 '22 at 02:33
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    Also of possible interest: this instance of "Yoo-hoo" as a child's greeting, from "Parents' Problems" in American Motherhood (April 1911): "I never yet have known a genuinely human boy who came in and hung up his cap or hat methodically every time. Sometimes they can manage to do so for several days at a stretch, and then there will be the old, familiar slam of the door, the sound of a hat flung blindly at a hat rack and hitting the floor, a boy's cheerful, "Yoo-hoo" or whistle—and—what of it?" – Sven Yargs May 05 '22 at 02:44
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As Luke says, from Eytmonline:

yoo-hoo
exclamation to call attention, 1924.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者
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  • @Tess as you said in your OP, the quote is 'shu-hu'. You then insist that it is the same as 'yoo-hoo'. – cornbread ninja 麵包忍者 Sep 01 '12 at 23:47
  • An Americanism documented in 1924? Interesting. The novel was published in 1920 and the author and characters are English. By the way, @cornbread ninja, I didn't mean to insist anything. Instead of saying "this must be..." I should have said "surely this must be..." as that's how I was thinking about it. I was guessing, not insisting. – Tess Jun 01 '13 at 09:49
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Thank you,for your explanation of “Yoo-Hoo” . When growing up we always used ‘yoo-hoo’ (for example when looking for each other in the grocery store). We thought the origin of "Yoo Hoo” was from the call of a Black-Capped Chickadee (described as “Fee Bee” and sounding like “Yoo-Hoo”, which is used by a single chickadee looking for it’s mate saying Where are you?, at any time of the year.

Sande Phillippi
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