The neighs have it
A BUSINESS-writer friend of mine is distressed by the abuse of the expression “yea or nay”. He says: “People use ‘yay or nay’ now in the same way they use free reign instead of free rein: a happy coincidence of meanings that allows it to persist. And grow. Like a fungus.”
Apart from formal voting in boardrooms, the word “yea” is largely obsolete these days. It is pronounced “yay”, which is why people get confused, but it does not mean “yay”. It means yes, verily, this is true.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” means “Indeed, I am in a dangerous place”. Replace yea with yay and you’re saying, “Oh goody gumdrops, I’m about to die.”
Yea comes from the Old English géa , used in Anglo-Saxon bars to accept a cup of mead. In the late 1800s, the Americans, not content with simply pronouncing it “year”, gave yea an “h”, turning it into “yeah”. Yeah began to be used to egg people on (“yeah, team”) and at some point mutated into “yay”, once again pronounced “yea”. It’s almost ironic.
Publishing company Random House has a lovely link on its website called The Mavens’ Word of the Day. Yea, they too have been plagued by yeah and yay. Contributor Wendalyn dug up the roots of yea and found the Latin text of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (731), which spells yea’s ancestor as gae, with this definition: “in the language of the Angles, a word of affirmation and consent”. I suppose even opposite angles would need a word for agreement.
“Yay” has been grudgingly admitted into the OED, which defines it as an “exclamation of triumph, approval, or encouragement”.
Yea, it is slang, but I approve of yay. Brevity and clarity are the watchwords of better communication. When your team wins, you could say, “I am consumed by glee and filled with feelings of exultation”. Or you could just say, “Yay”.
But we need to know our yeas from our yays. Yea is still used, mostly accompanied with sweeping hand gestures, to indicate size. “The building was yea high.” Wentworth and Flexner’s 1960 Dictionary of American Slang, however, allows for “yay big”, which is a travesty. “The snake was yea long” means the snake was indeed this long (and I was indeed terrified). “The snake was — yay! — long” means it filled me with glee and exultation to behold a snake of such length.
Verily, there must be those who exult over long snakes. Herpetologists, and those who make snakeskin belts for portly folk. But not most of us, and certainly not horses. A horse would say nay to long snakes, or perhaps neigh.
Speaking of horses, a bride can bridle blushingly, but if you’re offered accommodation in the “bridle suite” (yea, I have seen this advertised), you’ve probably wandered into a Fifty Shades of Grey -themed hotel by mistake (or on purpose, depending on your proclivities).
If you’re on honeymoon, it’s usually the bridal suite you’re after. A blatant case of gender discrimination, if you ask me. Where are the groomal suites?