"Huzza!"

No, this is not a post about being done the chapter. It is a post about the history of language. Sorry to disappoint you twice.

I was skimming a PDF of Maria Edgeworth's selected letters tonight (thank you, Google Books for saving my bacon) and a funny word caught my eye:

Yes, Maria Edgeworth channels Mr. Burns and uses "huzza!" in a letter.

This made me wonder how old the word "huzza" actually is, and so I turn to the good old OED. As an interjection or exclamation, the earliest recorded usage found is from 1682: "these Rogues sing Huzza!"

But as a noun meaning "a shout of exultation or applause; a hurrah", "huzza" goes as far back as at least 1573, over four hundred years ago.

So Maria Edgeworth wasn't exactly ahead of the curve in terms of using "huzzah" in an 1809 letter.

This isn't the first time Edgeworth's idiom has struck me, though. One of the chapters in her novel Belinda is titled "Love Me, Love My Dog". Turns out that phrase? Appears as early as freaking 1475! 1475!

Love me, love my hound. Who knew?