Say, Kid. Hey, Man

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is, my name is Ken, and I’m calling from Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

Hi, Ken.

How are you guys?

We’re doing great. What can we help you with?

It’s interesting to discover that words have lifespans. You know, sometimes we discover that a word that we thought was recent is actually very old, but sometimes words die.

The word that I’m thinking of is the word say, as in, oh, say, can you see? I don’t even know what part of speech that is. But it was used in that fashion at least through the 40s, because I remember in the old Humphrey Bogart movies, he would always say stuff like, say, what’s the big idea? It disappeared, you know, and I wonder if it just disappeared or if it morphed into hay.

Now, that’s an interesting word in itself. When I was, I’m 67, when I was a kid, that was a word that you’re not supposed to use. At least kids weren’t supposed to use that to adults. It wasn’t obscene, but it was impolite somehow. I don’t quite know why, but if I came into the house and said, hey, Ma, she would say, hey is for horses. Something that kids aren’t supposed to do.

Which brings up another whole question about language etiquette. But anyway, I’m just interested in hey. Is it still for horses? Say didn’t become hey. Let’s just put the kibosh on that. Say is its own thing, hey is its own thing, and they’re unrelated.

But I do want to say the longer form of your mom’s response, it’s hay is for horses, grass is cheaper, straw is free, marry a farmer, and you have all three. So say as an expression, kind of an interjection to something you throw into a conversation to catch someone’s attention did kind of fall out of fashion. It was colloquial, maybe slangy, and that’s what happens to stuff that isn’t core English, like words about relationships and parts of the body and the fundamentals of the earth and animals. Those are the ones that tend to be consistent and not change very much.

So say definitely went the way of much slang and disappeared. The say in oh say can you see is not quite the same say as say, kid, what are you doing? What are you trying to do to me? It’s not quite the same thing at all. But they’re both attention getters. And the one in the national anthem is literally, I believe, if I can parse this approximately, asking you to tell the speaker, can you actually see the flag? Can you see the ramparts? Can you see what’s happening? So it’s a question. Can you see it?

Lang Ward, also tell me what’s the scoop here.

Yeah, exactly. When Bogart says that, he’s asking to have the thing explained to him. But this will be a little moment for most of our listeners. In the American mind, there’s an old stereotype about the British saying, I say, old chap. And that I say is directly related to the say, what are you trying to pull here, kid? It’s exactly, they’re very similar. They’re both attention getters. Both interjected into the sentence to cause you to focus on what is being said.

I associate say at the beginning of a sentence with Jimmy Stewart or World War II movies. Say, you know, it’s sort of this whole other era. By the way, it dates back probably to the 1830s, that say, that particular kind of weird say that we associate with old black and white films.

Is hay still considered impolite anywhere? I think it wasn’t so much the impolite, at least according to the books that I’ve read and the grammars and etiquette guides and so forth. It’s about the informality of speaking to your elders.

Right. It’s about the informality of the relationship. She is not one of your peers. She is your mother, and she deserves a little more respect than, hey, Ma.

That’s right. We were talking about, you can say hey to another kid or an adult can say hey to a kid.

Yeah. It’s not the other way around. But in the United States, we’ve lost a certain amount of that formality. Actually, it’s all across the world, that old formality of speaking to your elders a particular way. Everything’s kind of flattened. There are still some rules, like a kid is supposed to address an adult by their first name, you know?

Well, I will tell you, all of my teachers in school were Mr. and Mrs. or Ms. this and that. And none of my sons are. He’s in middle school. He may have Miss Mindy and Ms. this and that, but it’s their first names, not their last names. And so it’s far more informal than when I went to school.

Thanks for taking the call.

Ken, our pleasure. Thanks. Call again sometime.

I will.

Take care.

Bye.

Bye, Ken.

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