# Ship ahoy! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [August 17, 2002, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384 "2002-08-17T20:11:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ian\_Orchard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5fc32e/32.png) [@Ian\_Orchard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ian_Orchard)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2002, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/1 "2002-08-17T20:11:56Z")
The nautical call may be used because the last vowel resonates nicely to make the call carry across the water. Much like the Southern (?) USA call “soooEEEEE” I guess, from the french ‘suis’ or the Australian attention attractor “coooEEEEEE!”. Both sounds can be heard a remarkable distance off. ~Ian O ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2002, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/2 "2002-08-17T21:54:47Z")
And the Staff Report in question, apparently not on the Home Page yet, is [What’s the origin of “ahoy”?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mahoy.html). ---
**Author:** ![ignatov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b4bc9f/32.png) [@ignatov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ignatov)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2002, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/3 "2002-08-18T15:14:02Z")
Cecil said: \<\\> Simpsons’ super-villain Mr. Burns answers the phone that way. But then, he’s famous for using archaic phrases. Ignatov ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2002, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/4 "2002-08-18T18:27:42Z")
**Ian** probably has something there, and that line of reasoning goes back before the Southern US. If you read the **OED** under the word _hoy_, you find the discussion extends back to the 1300’s. By the 1600’s the word _hoy_ was cited as an interjection, quite often used in driving pigs. Also, under _hoy_, the OED says > [@](#): > > 1769 FALCONER Dict. Marine s.v. Holloa, If the master intends to give any order to the people in the main-top, he calls, Main-top, hoay! To which they answer, Holloa! If that was in a dictionary, it certainly existed well-before that time. Notice the variant of _hello_ being used in reply. The possiblity that the early use of the word _hoy_ in reference to (esp.) Dutch ships led to the term being used as a nautical call (a-hoy!) is intriguing. UNfortunately, early print sources are sparse on that. As far as “hello” being “invented” by Edison–you can read **Koenigsberg’s** article [here](http://www.collectorcafe.com/article_archive.asp?article=800&id=1507) Yes, he was probably the first to spell it that way. But he merely stole a common word in use, _hullo_. Perhaps he merely spelled the slang term _incorrectly_, the way he _thought_ it sounded. Pretty good job, **Dex**. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2002, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/5 "2002-08-19T11:46:46Z")
Ignatov, welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards, glad to have you here. Just FYI, the Staff Reports are not written by Cecil himself – he gets paid for writing one column a week, and one column a week is what he writes. The Staff Reports are taken on by the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board, and I happened to do the one on “ahoy.” ---
**Author:** ![lothos2002](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/df788c/32.png) [@lothos2002](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lothos2002)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2002, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/6 "2002-08-20T16:03:28Z")
Continuing with Hello, How did people greet each other before “Hello”?, Greetings, my friend sounds a bit awkward. Salutations is also very long. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2002, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/7 "2002-08-20T17:35:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > Eric Partridge traces it to the earlier interjection “hoy!” and the early Dutch “hui!” and perhaps the French “ohé!”, all from the Middle Dutch “hoey” or “hode” and possibly derived from Old High German “huota” meaning protection (whence the word “heed”).\*\* Sounds like a bunch of hooey to me. ---
**Author:** ![MaggiRos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@MaggiRos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaggiRos)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2002, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/8 "2002-08-25T18:57:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lothos2002 \* > \*\*Continuing with Hello, How did people greet each other before “Hello”?, Greetings, my friend sounds a bit awkward. > Salutations is also very long. \*\* Those phrases seem long or awkward now because you’re not used to them. We tend to a more abbreviated mode of speech in these impatient days of fax and overnight delivery. The Elizabethans had a number of alternatives to “hello” (which was an exclamation, not a greeting) all of which can be gotten used to if you happen to be working a good renaissance faire. 🙂 They said instead: [ul]Good day Good morrow God ye good 'en (or just, Good 'en, short for good evening) God save you, sweet mistress How now, Sir Toby Belch [/ul] And like that. 🙂 Maggie The Elizabethan World is at [http://ren.dm.net/compendium/29.html](http://ren.dm.net/compendium/29.html) ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2002, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/9 "2002-08-25T19:27:05Z")
> [@](#): > > How now, Sir Toby Belch This was an Elizabethan greeting. CITE?? And don’t tell me about “raining cats and dogs.” ---
**Author:** ![MaggiRos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@MaggiRos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaggiRos)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2002, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/10 "2002-08-25T19:41:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by samclem \* > \*\* > > This was an Elizabethan greeting. CITE?? > > And don’t tell me about “raining cats and dogs.” \*\* Sir Toby Belch is a character in Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” The expression “How now” is all over Elizabethan literature, including Shakespeare, sometimes as a greeting, sometimes as an exclamation (comparable to “what’s all this, then?”), and sometimes both! I wrote the “Still More Language” page of my website–on which the list I posted appears–ages ago, so I’d have to go back to the play to find an exact citation. The plays really are the best place to look for Elizabethan forms of address Now, about “raining cats and dogs” and that whole “Life in the 1500s” riff that goes around from time to time…please, just say no. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2002, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/11 "2002-08-25T20:01:03Z")
**Maggi**. I’m sorry if that sounded snotty. I didn’t mean it quite the way it came out. If you had said “How now!” as a greeting, I probably would have said nothing. But the inclusion of Sir Toby set me off. You _did_ simply mean that “how now” was the greeting form from Shakespeare? Yes? ---
**Author:** ![MaggiRos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@MaggiRos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaggiRos)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2002, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/12 "2002-08-25T20:08:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by samclem \* > \*\ ***Maggi**. I’m sorry if that sounded snotty. I didn’t mean it quite the way it came out. > > If you had said “How now!” as a greeting, I probably would have said nothing. But the inclusion of Sir Toby set me off. > > You _did_ simply mean that “how now” was the greeting form from Shakespeare? Yes? \*\* Yep. Just an example drawn from Shakespeare of “how now” in use. Not meant to suggest that you would walk up to just anyone and say “How now, Sir Toby Belch.” Maggie The Elizabethan World is at [http://ren.dm.net](http://ren.dm.net) ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2002, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/13 "2002-08-26T11:56:22Z")
In fact, “how now” was such a common greeting that Shakespeare even makes fun of it, in _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_. “How now, brown cow?” appears in that play. You wondered where that came from? The Bard. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2002, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/14 "2002-08-26T18:44:03Z")
\<\< “How now, brown cow?” appears in that play. You wondered where that came from? The Bard \>\> That’s the problem with Shakespeare, he writes in such cliches. ---
**Author:** ![mischievous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mischievous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mischievous)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2002, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/15 "2002-08-26T19:08:11Z")
Small hijack (and very minor nitpick)… **Dex** , you commented in this column that “yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum” was _not_ piratical. Coincidentally, I just found a charming 1909 edition of Treasure Island in an attic and just finished reading it. The “yo-ho-ho” song was being sung by pirates, it involved piratical topics such as “bottles of rum” and “twenty men on a dead man’s chest”, and struck terror in the hearts of the honest men in the book, who were scared of pirates. Assuming that Treasure Island is the source of this phrase, how do you conclude that it was not originally piratical? (And is that a real word?) ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2002, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/16 "2002-08-27T02:40:58Z")
Robert Louis Stevenson’s pirates were fictional. When I said the song was not piratical, I meant that we have no evidence that real pirates sang such songs or said such phrases. And the word “piratical” is a perfectly good word. At least, it was used in Gilbert & Sullivan’s _Pirates of Penzance_, and so I felt that I could use it too. ---
**Author:** ![mischievous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mischievous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mischievous)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2002, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/17 "2002-08-27T18:38:04Z")
Ah. I undrestand the distinction. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![li\_l\_Dickie\_Dirtz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/2bfe46/32.png) [@li\_l\_Dickie\_Dirtz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/li_l_Dickie_Dirtz)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/18 "2002-08-28T12:26:07Z")
[Tug](http://tugahoy.com/)[Ahoy](http://www.fathom.org/teemingmillions/jdt.html), anyone? Oh, come on! How could I let that one slip by, with all the ahoys, and the dicks, and the . . . look at my username! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/19 "2002-08-29T21:19:46Z")
**li’l Dickie Dirtz** , you’re new here, so you may not realize this, but most of us here have, in fact, heard of the Tug Ahoy, and would prefer not to be reminded of it. A few years ago, we had a rather unpleasent individual here who firmly maintained that circumcision was the cause of all the world’s evils, and was fond of telling us of his own use of said product. ---
**Author:** ![li\_l\_Dickie\_Dirtz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/2bfe46/32.png) [@li\_l\_Dickie\_Dirtz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/li_l_Dickie_Dirtz)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2002, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ship-ahoy/124384/20 "2002-08-30T12:42:29Z")
I’m well aware of that. I was a witness to the whole mess. In fact, the [Ahoy](http://www.fathom.org/teemingmillions/jdt.html) part of my link takes you to the Teeming Millions page that documents the lurid affair (which might have been more obvious if I hadn’t screwed up the coding). It was (supposed to be) a joke. An amusement. I’ve slinked around here long enough to think that somebody would find the connection humorous, if a bit close to home. I apologize if the wounds are still too open for some people.