I didn’t realise it was a Homer-ism until I happened to watch The Simpsons the other night and saw the yellow paterfamilias attempting to distract Marge’s attention from something he’d done.
Homer seems to use Anyhoo! as a means of distraction.. It’s his way of saying, ‘Please don’t notice that dumb thing I just did’ as he whistles tunelessly, feigning innocence, while attempting to move everyone along.
People on the blogs I read have adapted the Homer-ism to a slightly different use. It’s still an attempt to divert attention away from something they don’t want anyone to dwell on, but rather than the source of discomfort being a moment of idiocy, it tends to be one of the opposing kind. Bloggers suddenly realise they’ve been intensely nerdy, or perhaps overly confessional, and it’s Homer to the rescue. Anyhoo-oo!
Anyhoo.
3 comments:
Heh. Good call, but I actually got it from South Park, in any episode where Canadians are featured. Apparently it's a Canadian thing too!
Anyhoo, can't speak for the provenance of anyone else's usage. Love your work.
It just snuck into blog language for me along with "sheesh".
I always knew I'd liked Canadians and now I find they're contributing to my vocabulary as well.
There's something about anyhoo and sheesh that work so well on the written page isn't there? Perhaps it's because they're too comics-like to actually speak (except if you're a Canadian, I suppose), but they convey just the right emotional tone in a blog post.
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