[net.nlang] It's yah

lew@ihuxr.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.) (02/13/84)

I had an English teacher in high school who had the habit of pursing his
fingers together and saying, "yah .... yah ....", in a caricature of
thoughtful contemplation.  I once made a graph of cumulative yahs as a
function of time in class. He averaged about one a minute.

For some reason this gave rise to the expression "It's yah" as an expression
of approval. This became incorporated into one of those ritual utterances
that youth invents. We had Stewart's infra-red sandwiches on campus (this
was a boarding school - George School, near Newtown, Pa., actually) and
one of the sandwiches was a "Chuckwagon". The ritual utterance was to recite
its ingredients in response to the question "What's in a Chuckwagon?",
followed by the summation "It's yah" - except that this was to be slurred
into 'tsyah, and tacked onto the last ingredient without pause.

I believe the list began, "hamsalamibaloneyswisscheeseamericancheese ..."
This was around 1965, well before McDonald's "two all beef patties ..."

	"Lie, Cheat, Steal, Run, and Kill if you have to"

		Lew Mammel, Jr. ihnp4!ihuxr!lew