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Zack Allain

English 112
3rd Essay
Word Analysis
A Tribute to Huh
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines huh as interjection \a grunt articulated as a syllabic
m or n with a voiceless onset, or as the syllable h or h, often ending in a glottal stop, and
uttered with a range of intonations; often read as h. To some people, it comes as a shock that
huh is even in the dictionary, it isnt even a word! But what are words? Does your idea of a word
match someone elses? What leads you to decide what word is proper and improper? Words
are the string with which humanity is held together. Words have the power to transfer one to a
different day, time, era or even world, and have the potential to transfer knowledge across the
ages. Few things are as strong as words, humanity would not be where it is today without
language, written or otherwise. Imagine this pile of language as a ball of yarn, with stands all
over the place, some old, some young, some falling apart with age and some so new that they
have barely been touched. Now, what if a few of the stands still in use are older than all the
others, and are in everyone elses ball of yarns as well? What would that mean? Those few
words are the unifying strands that bring humanity together, those select few words so very
human that they transcend the language barrier and link all of humanity. Ten dollars worth of
pickles cant get you a new floor tile. Confused? Read it again. Still Confused? The word most
people would say when reading that is huh, and that is a very universal statement, that would be
most peoples answer, huh. Huh is one of those special strings, a guide wire of the human
experience, one that can be traced back to the earliest of peoples. Yet, people all over find it
rude, and repulsive. Parents right now are telling their children not to say huh, to say excuse
me or pardon me. In modern society, it is seen as rude and rough, I remember a middle school
history teacher saying how the ancient Greeks called anyone who didnt speak Greek

barbarians because they sounded like they were just saying Bar bar, that is what huh is today,
we are told it is the word of the modern barbarian, a uncivilized brute without the graces that all
of those in society possess. It is a dirty word, a word that is filled with such raw humanity that
people fear to use it, it has a stigma. But, if people could only understand the significance of the
word, would they be a bit more open to its use?
To understand the power of the word huh, one must first look at its usage across the
globe. For example, the most commonly spoken language on earth, mandarin, with almost one
billion speakers, has a word for huh, hehe. How about Europe, specifically a romance language,
such as Italian, they would say eh. What about another European language, a bit more obscure,
like Finnish, they would say hh. Well maybe this can all be chalked up to a fluke, but look at
Thailand, they would say ha. Now, at face value, even a child could look at these words and say
they look the same, but arent. That has to be attributed to changes in language over time,
resulting in new dialects and eventually, new spoken language. But what was the original
language, what did all these languages evolve from? According to Arika Orent of the
Smithsonian Magazine, a word like huh is ....vowel is produced with a relatively relaxed tongue
(never a vowel that requires you to lift your tongue, like ee, or pull the tongue back, like oo).
And if any sound comes before the vowel, it is either an h sound or whats called a glottal stop,
a consonant sound formed by a complete closure of the glottis, the thin space between the
vocal folds.(Orent et al. 2014) The word huh, or language based variations of it, has a set of
parameters it falls into, which is really crazy to think about for a word, it fits a specific mold. But
why? This can all be traced back to its origins, the Proto Indo European Language, a language
that was spoken around 3500 BC, at around the time in which the earliest of state societies
were being born, and this led to an explosion of culture amongst these societies, and identities
were formed, leading to new languages and dialects branching off of them. A post by Alva Noe
on NPR, discusses this very phenomenon, and also presents some counter points to this
universality presented by other authors. One such point states that it is a case of convergent

evolution (Noe et al. 2013), or a case of people just all ending up at the same word because it
uses easy to say syllables and universal sounds in language. This is a solid counter point, but
really doesnt fit in this situation. While it is very easy to apply this term in biology in cases of a
bird and mammals both having a four chambered heart, even though we didnt both evolve from
an ancestor with this heart, we just both developed it to adapt. One must remember that all
humans, and therefore human cultures, evolved from an original group of humans, certain
branches may have left at earlier or later times, but they can all trace their lineage back to the
same roots. So a theory of convergent evolution of these words, while a very valid and concrete
fact in biology, cannot be used here, it just doesnt fit. The ability of two things to evolve into one
over time takes billions of years, but to believe that a word universally developed, one must
forget that it has only been around 8500 years or so since the languages started to branch off
from each other in major ways, that is not nearly enough time. So, the significance of this word
is apparent, but what is happening to it today?
Listen to any conversation between friends today, and then listen to those same people
talk to new people or people they look up to, and it will become apparent how modern humans
have different words and tones used for different settings. Growing up, my mom never let me
say huh. She was against it, she said it was rude and sounded awful. When I told her I was
writing this paper, she cringed at the sound of the word, she even told me how much she hated
it. She always says pardon me or excuse me, and when my brother and I would say huh, she
would make a point to correct our language. But why? Why is this word seen as so awful? Why
do mothers everywhere correct their children when they say it? In her article on why she never
wants to hear huh again, Claire Fallon goes into great detail on why she hates this word. She
concedes early on that the word is fine it settings in which it is used as a filler, such as Huh,
thats pretty funny.(Fallon et al. 2014) This is a great point, to most people this is the one time it
is ok, the one time it slips into their language, even if they hate the word. Its almost like they
only use it in settings when it is fully acceptable to use it. With this conversational safety net on,

they feel fine with slipping into this informal speech. Fallon discusses how she feels the word is
charged, with either a feeling of disinterest or with an aura of judgement. (Fallon et al. 2014) But
thats why this word is so powerful, it has meanings that change for each situation, a wide array
of ideas can be put forth with just one word. You cant express sadness in a word, or happiness,
but you can expression confusion, or judgement, or disinterest. It is a truly human word, but
maybe thats why people dont like it, because it expresses so much humanity. It fights against
this idea we have in modern culture that everything should be clean, thought out and
emotionless. We fear the animal in us, the nature. We refer to ourselves as a different group
than other animals, we like to act like we are something other than hairless monkeys on a rock
in space. Maybe its the fear of the mundane, we fear being just another animal on the earth,
and we fear not being the center. With this fear we try to separate ourselves from all things
animal, and when you have a word that expresses something as human as confusion, it
reminds us that we are human. We try to clean up our speech in order to appear above all those
emotions, to appear we have full control over our animal side.
The transition of the word huh over time follows our own progression as a species. From
humble origins, the word has followed us to our current position, yet the meaning or its power
hasnt wavered. As a last name allows for one to honor the past and see where they came from,
so too does huh allow mankind to trace our origins. The concept of communicating, and then
expressing confusion is key to us as a species, with being so social comes a need to express
when one is confused, so as to avoid any complications arising, So when people try to remove
this word from our lexicon, it is like removing the humanity from speech. It is the sterilization of
our humanity, the removal of what makes us human. Huh is not to be avoided, the fear of the
word should be shunned, the word should be embraced. The word is a treasure, a rare glimpse
into the time of prehistory, a link to all of our ancestors, a shared heritage. Ill admit, huh is ugly,
it will never be used to sway a lover, or incorporated into a fiery speech. It is the word of the

common man, of millennia of common people, not meant for kings but for humans, for hairless
monkeys on a rock in space.

References
Noe, Alva. "Could One Word Unite The World?" NPR. NPR, 11 Nov. 2013. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.

Fallon, Claire. "Honestly, I Never Want To Hear The Word 'Huh?' Again." The Huffington Post.
TheHuffingtonPost.com, 12 Mar. 2014. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.

Orent, Arika. "Everybody in Almost Every Language Says." Smithsonian. 1 Mar. 2014. Web. 15
Apr. 2015.

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