#53 A WOMAN'S BRIEFS --OOPS!
CARTOON FROM 1909
Ready for something other than Politics? How about a word? Here’s one for you: Ooperzootics. Because I am presently (or should be) involved in three writing projects, I am going to briefly get you with me to the word: “OOPS.”
Interjections, those abrupt remarks we humans make, are likely the oldest form of language we have. “Oops” is one. We aren’t alone in that. Vervet monkeys have interjections that differ depending on whether it’s a snake-like predator, leopard-like, or something flying that might mean trouble.
We humans have interjections galore: oh-oh, aha, ahem, duh, huh, psst, shh, vroom, whee. We have three types, actually: expressive (Yuck!), conative (Hey! Shh!), phatic (uhhuh, ahh) Hey! is directed toward others, Uhhuh, or Hmm maintain conversational flow. Whew.
“Oops” which at its core means that a mistake has been made and noticed. Like, if you find a typo in this blog you might say, “Oops.”
It’s a fairly universal interjection, and it seems our English awareness of it (American ‘oops’ and British ‘wuups’) comes from the word, ooperzootics, which refers to a fit of craziness in humans. How-ever . . .like so many things we think we know, a bit of a deeper dive delivers us to yet another interjection: Ah-ha!
I leave you with this. Professor Ray Malewitiz, Oregon State University, dug deep for the meaning of “Oops” and found a cartoon from 1909 of a horse hollering “Whee!-Oop!” after eating toxic locoweeds.
Stay with me here. Malewitiz argues that the word ‘ooperzootics is a variant of ‘epizooty,’ a disease affecting animals during the Great Epizootic of 1872. WHICH, (breathe) killed off horse-driven transportation. Wow!
Suddenly, people replaced animals pushing carts around American cities. The professor maintains that this crossover between animal and human worlds led to a goodly amount of surprise and laughter, and the shortening of the horse’s cry, Whee-oops! to “Oops.” As in,“Oops, there goes another one.” That led, eventually, to “Oops a daisy” when we spring a child up from a fall, or Oops! when a politician gets caught in a lie. But, Oops, I meant to steer away from such a locoweed topic.
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