"Zut alors!"

[Jorge]

Haven’t found the etymology yet, Mjollnir - FWIW “zut” isn’t found in my 1953 7th edition “Dictionnaire de l’argot moderne”. Strange, as that text is very comprehensive.

The exact quote from the old, early 60’s Petit Larousse I got - no accents, I’ll skip the typography - was:

“pop. Interjection qui exprime le depit, le mepris, l’indifference.”

My earlier comment about “fugedaboudit” stands, missbunny, as that is pretty much the meaning of the NY idiomatic expression, not literal translations of “I don’t care” or “forget about it”.

[astorian]

I haven’t done any serious research on this subject- I just remember that, years ago, my French professor told me that “Zut” was derived from the name of the Greek god Zeus. That may or may not be correct, but I find it very plausible.

After all, “Zut alors” is hardly the only modern expletive/exclamation that refers to the ancient gods. Englishmen shout “By Jove,” which refers to Jupiter (aka Zeus).

[Jorge]

Can anyone locate an early citation ? the earliest I came up with, in a mediocre look around, was in Asterix comics.

[bibliophage]

I’m back from the library where I found “Tresor de la Langue Francaise”, copyright 1994 by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris. Under the “Zut” heading, I found the following information. This is my own (probably imperfect) translation from the French).

History and Etymology: [earliest use cited] 1813, “Allons, z’ut, pour les petits boyaux, Y faut m’regaler d’un pigeon.” . . .

A word born of a combination of two elements, “z-” and “-ut” of which the first represents the final “-s” of “allons” or “je te/lui dis”; the “z” of compounds, grammatical or not [“le ‘z’ de liaison, motive ou non”], being characteristic of the vulgar language of the beginning of the 19th century, which supplies us with our quotation of 1813. The second element, “ut” or its variant “hut”, appear in the following texts: (1791) “Allons, allons, hut! pas de ca.” And (1797) “Et ut, j’ai bu ma goutte.” . . . The ending “-ut” is of obscure origin and has received many explanations, some dictionaries seeing in “zut” a cross between “zest” and “flute”. Archives of Linguistics considers “-ut” to be a toned-down euphemism of foutre [fuck] by the progression (foutre->outre->out->zut). According to Boutmy, “zut” is a corruption of “ut”, a word used for good luck in printers’ argot. This is the first word of a formula that ancient printers put to paper: “Ut tibi prosit meri potio.” [Latin, “May this unadulterated wine be good for your health.”]. By abbreviation, they contented themselves with saying the word “ut.” In “ut” one can see onomatopoeia for “sifflement” [“swish”], which may or may not be accompanied by a rapid hand gesture, as in sleight of hand (making someone or something disappear). By extension, [the word is used to express] the desire of seeing the disappearance or removal of someone or something. In this sense “ut” comes close to “pfft” and its variations.

I hope this helps. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what “le ‘z’ de liaison, motive ou non” means. I translated it as “The ‘z’ of compounds, grammatical or not.” Even if that’s a fair translation (which I doubt) I still don’t know what it means. Perhaps someone out there can enlighten me.

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Work is the curse of the drinking classes. (Oscar Wilde)

[Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker]

That (“liason”) could be a reference to the “s” as being pronounced when followed by a vowel, where it would normally be silent.