Saturday, December 06, 2003
La-dee-da.
Dear Word Detective: I was scanning through your past issues recently and came across a phrase which I had heard before. You were explaining the origins of the phrase "practical joke," and you wrote the line "... routinely published by the hoity-toity academic journal Social Text." While I know nothing about this uppity journal of which you write I am not worried about that part. I am worried that I don't know the origin of your colorful descriptive term "hoity-toity" because I have heard it used a few times (more then once by you) and am mystified as to where it may have come from. Could you help me out? -- Shawn, via the internet.
Trust me, you can lead a long and happy life without ever reading Social Text. "Hoity-toity" is a good example of how English words can dramatically change their meanings over time. Although today we use "hoity-toity" to mean "stuck up or snobbish, self-important, pretentious and disapproving," the original meaning of "hoity-toity" was almost exactly the opposite. When "hoity-toity" appeared as an adjective in English in the late 17th century (as "hoighty-toighty"), it meant "giddy, flighty or frolicsome." To be "hoity-toity" was to act in a silly, childish, impulsive manner, as if always on the verge of instigating a pillow-fight. The root of "hoity-toity" seems to be the obsolete verb "hoit," meaning "to indulge in mirth, to romp inelegantly," apparently related to the venerable term "hoyden," meaning "boisterous or rude girl or woman." ("Hoyden" originally applied to both men and women, and was probably derived from the Dutch "heiden," meaning "heathen.")
Now here's where the story gets really interesting. It was apparently not uncommon for prim-and-proper folks in the 18th and 19th centuries to look down their noses at "foolish" or rowdy behavior and exclaim "Hoity-toity!" with a snort of derision, much as you or I might mutter "Nitwits!" at skateboarders on a crowded sidewalk. But in a stunning display of verbal jujitsu in the late 1800s, the targets of such derision gradually began to use "hoity-toity" as shorthand for the "disapprovers" themselves (mocking their constant use of the phrase), and "hoity-toity" gradually took on its modern meaning of "haughty, huffy and pretentious."
http://www.word-detective.com/020403.html#hoity-toity
Dear Word Detective: I was scanning through your past issues recently and came across a phrase which I had heard before. You were explaining the origins of the phrase "practical joke," and you wrote the line "... routinely published by the hoity-toity academic journal Social Text." While I know nothing about this uppity journal of which you write I am not worried about that part. I am worried that I don't know the origin of your colorful descriptive term "hoity-toity" because I have heard it used a few times (more then once by you) and am mystified as to where it may have come from. Could you help me out? -- Shawn, via the internet.
Trust me, you can lead a long and happy life without ever reading Social Text. "Hoity-toity" is a good example of how English words can dramatically change their meanings over time. Although today we use "hoity-toity" to mean "stuck up or snobbish, self-important, pretentious and disapproving," the original meaning of "hoity-toity" was almost exactly the opposite. When "hoity-toity" appeared as an adjective in English in the late 17th century (as "hoighty-toighty"), it meant "giddy, flighty or frolicsome." To be "hoity-toity" was to act in a silly, childish, impulsive manner, as if always on the verge of instigating a pillow-fight. The root of "hoity-toity" seems to be the obsolete verb "hoit," meaning "to indulge in mirth, to romp inelegantly," apparently related to the venerable term "hoyden," meaning "boisterous or rude girl or woman." ("Hoyden" originally applied to both men and women, and was probably derived from the Dutch "heiden," meaning "heathen.")
Now here's where the story gets really interesting. It was apparently not uncommon for prim-and-proper folks in the 18th and 19th centuries to look down their noses at "foolish" or rowdy behavior and exclaim "Hoity-toity!" with a snort of derision, much as you or I might mutter "Nitwits!" at skateboarders on a crowded sidewalk. But in a stunning display of verbal jujitsu in the late 1800s, the targets of such derision gradually began to use "hoity-toity" as shorthand for the "disapprovers" themselves (mocking their constant use of the phrase), and "hoity-toity" gradually took on its modern meaning of "haughty, huffy and pretentious."
http://www.word-detective.com/020403.html#hoity-toity
