(h)ummed and (h)arred??

[Wilkie]

I always thought that when you deliberated something you "ummed and arred", yet I have heard a number of people recently saying "hummed and harred". Which (if either) is correct? I have also heard people saying "olde wolde" rather than "olde worlde" - I take it that the latter is correct?

[Quizmonster]

'Hum and ha' or 'hum and haw' are the usual basic form. The latter is more easily transferred into the past tense as 'hummed and hawed'.

[Quizmonster]

Oops! Forgot the second question. It should be 'worlde', as it means 'old world' as a sort of fake old English. It's a bit like 'Ye' which people imagine was pronounced 'yee' and meaning 'the'.

[rojash]

That's a bit of a teaser, QM! How was "ye" pronounced?

[jno]

Ye was pronounced the. There used to be a single letter representing the -th- sound, called thorn. It looked a bit like a Y. More than you want to know here

In old and middle English, words sometimes had an -e (or other letters) on the end that have subsequently dropped off.

I've always known it as um and ah, though ummed and ahed looks a bit strange, so QM's spelling is better. Hummed and ha'd sounds okay but does anyone actually say 'ha' when they're hesitating?

[Quizmonster]

'Ha' and 'haw' have been used to indicate hesitation in speech since the 1600s. Shakespeare, for example, employs them thus in Troilus and Cressida and Pericles.
The earliest recorded use of the two-part phrase - in the form 'hum'd and hah'd' - appeared in the same century.

[rojash]

errrm, not me...

[rojash]

My reply was intended for jno, but QM got in first