Dave Moloney has asked for a post on the
pernicious misuse of the term “hear hear’ as…”Here here”.
I’ve tried to find examples of the misspelling “here, here” on the web, but without much success. I did find a CD with the title Here, Here, and Here.
If you’ve ever watched a session of the House of Commons on television, you’ll have heard shouts of “Hear, hear!” These are shouts of approval. The shouters are expressing agreement with whatever a speaker has said. For example, the Daily Mail (Online) describes the response to a remark by David Cameron that the previous administration had “broken the nation’s covenant with [the British] armed forces”:
The moment he spoke this line the hall erupted in defiant shouts of ‘hear hear’ and, from one man near me, ‘bloody right’.
The phrase is a contraction of “Hear him, Hear him,” meaning “listen to what the man’s saying.” According to some commentators, it is sometimes used ironically.
“Caitlyn Jenner, you are a normal woman right now, today. You don’t need a man to make you a woman.” Hear, hear!
We reached out to Thomas, who contacted us about the Facebook meme, to tell him it was a fake. He said it just goes to show, “Everything you read on Facebook isn’t the gospel truth written in stone by Moses. You need to check your sources.” Hear, hear!
When I was at school, many moons ago, we used to have mock parliamentary debates and we were taught that “here, here” was a confirmation of agreement with the speaker—that the person calling out was letting it be known that he/she (over here)approved.
Very interesting.
Kath Babbs