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A little joke at the end of Cupid's Cyclopedia by Oliver Herford, 1910: the appendix has been taken out.
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A cat chained to a dog as an example of a "double negative." From Junior English in Action.
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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.)
We obviously offer zero woo-hoos for the disinformation out there about the origin and usage of "woo-hoo." The lesson, of course, is that when something sounds unbelievable, like "woo-hoo" being only as old as 1981, it shouldn't be believed unless further investgation confirms it. It took us less than five minutes to verify that "woo-hoo" is at the very least a century older than our authorities would admit.
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"She returned his stare." From Indiana University's 1913 yearbook.
Jonathan Caws-Elwitt notes: "The Amelia Bedelia-precursing pun raises more questions than it answers, I would say, to wit, (1) How and why did she borrow his staircase in the first place? (2) Did she somehow borrow it without his knowing? If not, why is he so blindsided by her returning it? (3) Assuming his astonished and annoyed reaction is caused, not by her returning it, but by her returning it in miniature form...well, um, how exactly did it get miniaturized? (4) Assuming the staircase was always a miniature staircase...well, then, what's the problem? She returned it in the same condition, didn't she? (5) Now, about her hat... Other possibilities that occur to me: (a) She's returning it as one would return an engagement ring. No wonder he's upset! (b) She's returning it on behalf of someone else. 'How in the world did my miniature staircase fall into your hands!' he's thinking."
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Synonyms for a monocle:
glass wafer
patch of crystal
third eye
eyeglass
one-eyed eyeglass
eyepiece
pendulum
ribbonless, ingrowing affair
his disguise
magic ring
ring of invisibility
shiny object
shiny bauble
magnifying glass
disk of crystal
the glass
the token of ceaseless interrogation
Picadilly window
glass onion
“The monocle is everything. Man. A crystallization. A gel. A micella. God.” —Blaise Cendrars, Dan Yack (1927, translated by Nina Rootes, 1987) “The monocle at his eye was like a veil to hide the soul, a defence against inquiry, itself the unceasing question, a sort of battery thrown forward, a kind of field-casemate for a lonely, besieged spirit. It was full of suggestion. It might have been the glass behind which showed some medieval relic, the body of some ancient Egyptian king whose life had been spent in doing wonders and making signs—the primitive, anthropomorphic being.” —Gilbert Parker, The Right of Way (1901) [snippets collected through the course of our research]
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Original Content Copyright © 2025 by Craig Conley. All rights reserved.
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