# Origin of "Och aye the noo!" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 1, 2009, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899 "2009-11-01T01:25:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2009, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899/1 "2009-11-01T01:25:43Z")
Some English people think that this is a real Scots saying. It isn’t; it doesn’t mean anything. Its literal translation is “Oh yes just now”. No one ever says that - where did it originate? ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899/2 "2009-11-03T09:23:49Z")
I remember it as a supposedly stereotypical Scots expression from episodes of _The Goodies_ in the 70s. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899/3 "2009-11-03T09:44:25Z")
I thinkit goes back quite a way. I remember it being used in children’s comics in the '60s to stereotype Scots characters, and it wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t already a very common meme. Although the phrase is pretty meaningless, both “och aye” and “the noo” are authentic Scots idioms which strike speakers of standard English as distinctly exotic. So I guess they just got coupled together as typical Scots language to identify a stereotypical Scots speaker. ---
**Author:** ![Weedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/weedy/32/301_2.png) [@Weedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weedy)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899/4 "2009-11-03T11:02:07Z")
For some reason I thought it was from _The Goon Show_, in which case it wouldn’t have to make any sense. ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899/5 "2009-11-03T12:05:14Z")
No cite at the moment but I suspect it is a lot older than the Goon Show in the '50s. Think Victorian Music Hall and comic Scotsmen in kilt and tam o’shanter. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899/6 "2009-11-03T12:11:50Z")
And to think I thought it was something made up by Colin Mochrie from _Who’s Line Is It Anyway?_. (He can’t say anything else with a Scottish accent.) But I do have a legitimate question: Why wouldn’t anyone really say it? It could be a response to a question like “Did the milkman come by?” ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899/7 "2009-11-03T13:03:57Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > And to think I thought it was something made up by Colin Mochrie from _Who’s Line Is It Anyway?_. (He can’t say anything else with a Scottish accent.) > > But I do have a legitimate question: Why wouldn’t anyone really say it? It could be a response to a question like “Did the milkman come by?” The point isn’t that you can’t contrive a situation in which it would be said, it’s that… well … you have to contrive a situation. ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899/8 "2009-11-03T23:50:09Z")
> [@Scheidt-Hoch](#): > > Some English people think that this is a real Scots saying… Some English people think the world is flat. Some English people want the sectarian Scottish Pub Teams in The Premiership. Some English people think they might bump into some Scots in South Africa next summer. But the vast majority of us aren’t that stupid. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2009, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899/9 "2009-11-04T12:19:28Z")
> [@mascaroni](#): > > Some English people think the world is flat. > Some English people want the sectarian Scottish Pub Teams in The Premiership. > Some English people think they might bump into some Scots in South Africa next summer. > > But the vast majority of us aren’t that stupid. Crikey, someone’s got a bee in his bunnet. It’s quite a leap of imagination to read “Some” as meaning “The vast majority, including me”, and to use that as an excuse to make cheap digs. Look mate, I have had intelligent English people, who were my friends, ask me what the phrase means. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2009, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899/10 "2009-11-04T15:38:29Z")
You mean Scottish is a real language? I thought that they just made that up for the movies, like Klingon. ---
**Author:** ![MrSquishy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9e5f3/32.png) [@MrSquishy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrSquishy)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2009, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899/11 "2009-11-04T19:46:01Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > You mean Scottish is a real language? I thought that they just made that up for the movies, like Klingon. Aye, Scots is real an’ a’: [Scots language - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language) ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2009, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899/12 "2009-11-04T22:11:43Z")
> [@MrSquishy](#): > > Aye, Scots is real an’ a’: [Scots language - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2009, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899/13 "2009-11-04T22:21:01Z")
> [@WotNot](#): > > The point isn’t that you can’t contrive a situation in which it would be said, it’s that… well … you have to contrive a situation. Except…no, you don’t. ‘Has X been by?’ is not a contrived question. Nor are ‘have you seen Y’ or ‘have you been to Z’, or any number of other similar questions. ‘Oh yes, just now’ is not an unusual answer to any them. The only question is if ‘Och aye, the noo’ would be a common way for a Scot to say ‘oh yes, just now’. It’s not a question of contriving a situation to use it, but of the commonality of the phrasing. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2009, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899/14 "2009-11-04T23:59:07Z")
But the way ‘comedians’ say it, it doesn’t have a comma. Even if it did, it would be pretty unusual to start the sentence with ‘Och’. Like I said, you don’t hear this phrase in Scotland. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899/15 "2009-11-05T01:10:16Z")
> [@Tengu](#): > > Except…no, you don’t. > > ‘Has X been by?’ is not a contrived question. Nor are ‘have you seen Y’ or ‘have you been to Z’, or any number of other similar questions. ‘Oh yes, just now’ is not an unusual answer to any them. > > The only question is if ‘Och aye, the noo’ would be a common way for a Scot to say ‘oh yes, just now’. > > It’s not a question of contriving a situation to use it, but of the commonality of the phrasing. Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I was taking it as read that, as **Scheidt-Hoch** said, it _isn’t_ a common expression. Also, as I understand it, “the noo” doesn’t mean “just now” as in “recently” but in the sense of “currently” or “at the moment,” or “these days.” It’s as though everyone thought that “Hell yeah anymore” was _the_ stereotypical American expression: they’re all words in common use in the US, but how often are they put together just like that? ---
**Author:** ![JoseArcadio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc348/32.png) [@JoseArcadio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseArcadio)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-och-aye-the-noo/515899/16 "2009-11-06T16:37:52Z")
There is only one situation I can conceive of where this phrase would be used (by a real Scot, not in the hypothetical): Someone asks you do to something you really don’t want to do, e.g. “could you photocopy this ?” and you reply “Ochhh… aye. The noo?” Except “the noo” is only used in certain regions of Scotland, in others you’d get “the now?” instead. I’ve only ever heard fellow Scots say “och aye the noo!” in jest.