The Right Word

As the show was filmed in one take and on a grueling schedule, actors frequently flubbed their lines on Dark Shadows.  Here's one finishing his speech with, "etc., etc," in episode 24.  The actor who replaced him as the sherrif says in episode 59, "Well, I'm just trying to fill in the blank spaces, ma'am."

So great when a character speaks her punctuation.  Actually, the full line she speaks is, "Period.  Exclamation point!"  The period/exclamation point combo is sort of like an interrobang, just less inquisitive.  From Dark Shadows episode 14.

We personally can't quite make out the 14 wonder words that earn money when repeated.  From Together, 1960.

We do appreciate a book that gets to the real questions, and of course the real questions require the "mystical quadruple interrogatory: how? what?? whence??? whither????"  From Rending the Vail by William Aber, 1899.

Lethal, lurking, luscious, leering, lured.  From The Film Daily, 1947.

There's no apostrophe on either the half title or title page of Niobia Bryant's Let's Do It Again.  This can happen with certain fonts and with careless proofreading.  Let [lowercase] s do it again!

You know him as Alfred E. Neuman, but here he's identified as Rexstrew Kirxbuddle.  From Indiana University's 1942 yearbook.

A rare spelling of "wig," usually found only in dramatic arts organizations like The Wigue and Masque.  From Lebanon Valley's 1950 yearbook.

From The Gateway, 1981.

If you detect sequins over your eyebrows, it's likely the "kreptactic light sequentials" combined with atmospheric conditions.  Isn't science wonderful?  From I Dream of Jeannie, season 3, episode 9. 

"That books are friends has been often proved."  From Lessons in English by Arthur Lee, 1917.

A cat chained to a dog as an example of a "double negative."  From Junior English in Action.

"Can't Get a Word In": Prof. Oddfellow's Penetralia.

From Lessons in English by Arthur Lee, 1917.

"Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again."  From Lessons in English by Arthur Lee, 1917.

From Innis Herald, 1990.

"My name is Ezra.  And my father’s was, and his father before him.  You find a name like Ezra, and you don’t give it up" (Abe Vigoda on Dark Shadows).

Merriam-Webster claims that the first known use of "woo-hoo" as an expression of exuberant delight or approval was in 1981.  But Patrick Dennis used "woo hoo" nearly two decades earlier (see clipping), in his novel Genius (1962).  And we find a delighted welcoming whoop of "Woohoo!" in 1906's The Silver Maple by Marian Keith.  The March 1903 issue of Current Literature mentions "an excited and exciting woohoo."  Even earlier, in 1887, there's a skipper's exuberant "Woohoo!" upon finding the sea as soft as a pillow (in the nautical ballad "Difficult Navigation" in Puck, August 6).

Daily Writing Tips claims that woo-hoo originated in computer gaming and "is very recent and has no etymological basis," yet the Dictionary of the Chinese Language by Robert Morrison (1815) notes that "woo hoo" is an exclamation of admiration.  ("Admiration" being synonymous with the "approval" noted by Merriam-Webster.)