Dot Wordsworth

Ask Jeeves: who first came out with ‘What ho’?

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issue 03 October 2020

In the First Act of Othello, just as things are getting interesting, the audience hears someone calling from offstage: ‘What ho, what ho, what ho!’ It is not Bertie Wooster but a sailor with news about the Turks (or Ottomites, as they are sometimes referred to).

Yet Bertie made ‘what ho’ his own.

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