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stranger
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"Geehaw" has a common meaning of agreement or getting along together. What dictionary or printed source carries this meaning? "Gee" by itself is cited in the OED, Eric Partridge's book on slang and unconventional words. No Internet dictionary seems to carry "geehaw," but the word is listed in various Internet postings to refer to such things as "not geehawing with a new digital camera," "one's Ipod not geehawing with his Dell," etc. Help for definition will be much appreciated. Thanks.--Johnnie Godwin
Johnnie Godwin
Johnnie Godwin
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Carpal Tunnel
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Doesn't seem to be in common use. Google claims 28 hits but only shows nine, six of which are a repeat of a single citation in which it seems to mean "to laugh." The other three look to be your "common" (if three out of 8 billion can be considered common) definition. As to an etymology, I'd WAG that it's from gee and haw, commands to a draft animal to turn right or left, respectively. But WAGs don't carry much weight in the field of etymology. Ask at wordorigins: http://p098.ezboard.com/bwordoriginsorgThey have a much better handle on this sort of question .
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Faldage, I'd bet money that you're right. My uncle--in Tennessee! (welcome aBoard, Johnnie)--used to call "gee" and "haw" to his pair of plowing mules (George and Henry) to get them to turn right or left. And any time there is more than one animal, they need to turn (work) together.
Hmm--it just occurred to me that this is yet another ex. of the anti-sinister world: I have only heard the words as gee and haw; never haw and gee.
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> another ex. of the anti-sinister world: umm, maybe they're just alphabetical?  welcome Johnnie. I don't think I've ever hear the phrase geehawing.
formerly known as etaoin...
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addict
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Welcome, Johnny. No, I've never heard it either. My initial response was that it sounded like an expression for slewing around and not making up one's mind which way to go - either haw or gee - no, wait, haw - umm, maybe gee......
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old hand
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I don't know the usage described, but makes sense in the context of the horse commands to me, in that, in computing for example one device usually acts as the 'master' and the other follows as the 'slave'. > Google claims 28 hits but only shows nine, six of which are a repeat of a single citation in which it seems to mean "to laugh." "gee haw" gets a few more (869), mainly to do with horses as far as I can tell. There was a 1928 cartoon book called: The Gee-Haw of the Modern Jehu! And there's the Gee-Haw-Whammy-Diddle toy:-) http://www.mugwumps.com/whammy.htmMaybe that was once used to control horses?
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stranger
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Johnnie Godwin here with thanks for the welcomes various ones of you gave me. Also, thanks for voting for "gee" and "haw." If you study longer and stronger on just "gee," you probably will find the idea of getting along together in the dictionaries: i.e. "geeing" together. It is never "hawing" together. As someone pointeds out, they never heard "haw and gee." I still tend to think the "geehaw" may have evolved much as zigzag or something of that sort. One of the interesting things to me is that I checked out umpteen references to the 10th power deep on research; and folks from old-timers to the youngest references mentions "geehaw" as in (1) "My digital camera doesn't geehaw with my Dell." (2) "Federal computers don't geehaw with [others?]. (3) Other references that showed by context they were using "geehaw" to refer to getting along with each other. So I'm not contesting the WAG of "gee" and "haw," but I do have solid OED and other references for "gee" as agreement or getting along together. Though the word "geehaw" obviously isn't common in print, I would encourage posters here to check it out with friends in the context I'm talking about. And when I revise my new book (SYZYGY~LIVING A POWERFULLY ALIGNED LIFE--out last week, Chalice Press--no press here:), I'll probably use "geehaw" and "jibe" too as examples of being in SYZYGY with folks.
A serious but lighthearted thanks to all of you who have posted so far. Appreciatively, Johnnie G in TN
Johnnie Godwin
Johnnie Godwin
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Hey, Johnnie G. Stick around. We could use someone of your credentials and level of interest. But, seriously, check out the folks at wordorigins. They are serious etymology folks and have usage resources far beyond anything we have here.
The whole "gee and haw" vs. "haw and gee" question is a whole nother subject that some have addressed. One that I can think of involves reduplications like "click and clack" and they seem to tend to be in ablaut series order. Others, like "black and white" and "stop and go" seem to fit some other set of rules, but I don't really remember what they were. You'll get some that are, or seem to be in the wrong order. The baseball expression "hit and run" is definitely in the wrong order; the base runner runs before the batter hits. "Lock and load" sounds wrong, but I've heard arguments from people who should know that the order is just fine as stated. It all hinges on what is meant by "lock."
But, as I said, that's a whole nother subject.
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See Theodore Sturgeon on syzygy.
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Pooh-Bah
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While geehaw does sound horse (or mule, not to be specie-ist) related, there seems to be no reference that dates pre-computer let alone from the horse age. Odd.
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