“Hurrah!”

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXVI, Issue 70, 7 April 1931, Page 7

“Hurrah!”

A WELL-KNOWN WORD QUESTION AS TO DERIVATION Few words can boast such a remote and widely-extended prevalence as “Hurrah!” It is one of the interjections in which sound so echoes sense,. that men seem to have adopted it almost instinctively. In India and Ceylon, the mahouts and attendants of baggage elephants cheer them on by perpetual repetitions of “Ur-re-re!” Arabs and camel-drivers in Turkey, Palestine and Egypt encourage their animals to speed by shouting “Ar-re, r-re!” The Moors in Spain drive their mules and horses with cries of “Arre!” In France the sportsman excites the hounds by his shouts of “Hare’: Hare!” and wagoners turn their horses by crying “Harhaut!” The herdsmen of Ireland and Scotland shout: “Hurrish! Hurrish!” to the cattle they are driving. It is evidently an exclamation common to many nations. Probably it is a corruption of “Tur-aie” (Thor aid), a battle cry of the ancient Norsemen, though some authorities derive it from the Jewish “Hosannah.” The word is often and was formerly invariably, spelt “Huzza,” and its pronunciation was “Hurray.” The following couplet shows that in Pope’s time it was pronounced in this'way:— “One self-approving hour, whole years

outweighs Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas.” —“Rape of the Lock.”