For some reason I was always under the impression that the word "meh" (as in "so-so") was of Asian origin. Maybe that's because my Asian-American friends in high school used it a lot. Language HatLog (thanks John) traces it back to the Simpsons, which lead me to search for an Asian connection. All I turn up is its use in Malaysian and Singaporean English ("Manglish" and "Singlish", respectively), but in a sense totally unrelated to its current usage: basically a partner to Mandarin's 吗.
Meh.
1 Comments:
There was a discussion on the American Dialect List that appeared following the Language Log article that associates "meh" with Yiddish, which LL seems to have an update concerning now. Considering that those in my area using "meh" and "feh" were all transplanted Jews from NY/NJ who spoke a good deal of Yiddish (or, as further mentioned at in the LL update, online fen), I can't help but agree.
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