I assume people calling themselves dj Pee Tee, dj Jay Kay, etc. Others, such as teevee (TV, television), deejay, (DJ, disc jockey), See-Threepio (C-3PO, Star Wars robot) are easily understood, but the spelled-out versions aren't as popular as the initialisms. By far the most common is okay, which one of a very few where the longer 'phonetic spelling' form occurs more often than the short form (possibly because people aren't sure whether 'ok' should be in capitals or not, and they're not sure what it stands for anyway).Ī couple more where we very often see the longer form are emcee (MC, Master of Ceremonies)) and Dubya (ex-president George W Bush). There aren't actually very many in common use. But it seems to have no currency as yet, and personally I much prefer acronomatopoeia as suggested by ELU's in a comment to that question. Wopsle said grace with theatrical declamation,-as it now appears to me, something like a religious cross of the Ghost in Hamlet with Richard the Third.Per answer in this related question, the coinage vocologue was proposed for such words over a decade ago.

Wopsle “a gentleman that you would like to hear give it out,” he apparently means the clerk has a great delivery in church.Įlsewhere in the novel, Pip, the narrator, describes a dinner-table scene in which “Mr. When Joe Gargery (Pip’s brother-in-law) calls Mr. This latter meaning is probably the one Dickens had in mind in Great Expectations.

Here’s a 19th-century example cited by the OED: “The clerk in church … gave out the psalm” (from Sabine Baring-Gould’s novel The Gaverocks, 1887). It has also meant to put forth or utter prayers, to announce a psalm in church, or to read out the words to be sung by a congregation. So it would appear that British emcees adopted the “Let’s give it up for …” routine from their colleagues in America, rather than the other way around.ĭickens’s phrase “give it out” has another meaning altogether, and Dickens wasn’t the first to use it.Īs the OED explains, the expression “give it out” has been used in various ways since the 14th century in the sense of announcing, proclaiming, uttering, and so on. “London studio stalwart Tony Remy goes live, complete with a ‘Let’s give it up for Tony’ rallying call” (from the Evening Standard, 1999). “Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together-give it up!-for three combative comedy releases” (from People magazine, 1993). Oxford has several more examples from the 1990s, including these two, one American and one British: The dictionary’s definition reads “to give it up: (of an audience, etc.) to applaud to show appreciation for an entertainer, etc.” The phrase is usually used in the imperative, the OED adds, especially “as an exhortation by a compère.” The OED’s first citation for the expression comes from a Usenet newsgroup in a posting from March 1990: “Hey folks, let’s give it up for Andy! One huge round of applause please!” Wopsle, the clerk at the village church, is described as “a gentleman that you would like to hear give it out.” Wot say ye?Ī: The expression “give it up,” meaning to applaud, originated in the US more than a century after Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. I recently came upon a similar wording that suggests the expression has Dickensian roots. Q: “Give it up,” MC-speak when asking for applause, hasn’t sat well with me-until now.

Emcee definition