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D’oh!
Gavin Dudeney
D’oh! Let me just say that again... ready? D’oh! If you’re
under 30, you’re probably picturing a yellow cartoon
character called Homer Simpson, right? If you don’t know
who Homer Simpson is, he’s the father of the family. Now
imagine him saying ‘D’oh!’ and picture this situation:
Homer has probably injured himself, done something
stupid, been caught out doing something stupid or lost out
on a good opportunity. D’oh! is an expression that says
‘Damn! I’m stupid’, or ‘Oh, not again!’ - the kind of thing
you might say when you realise you’ve done something
silly.
D’oh! first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in
2002, but it was first heard on a 1988 episode of the
Tracey Ullman TV show featuring an early version of the
Simpsons, with Homer being knocked out by a punching
bag. Since then it has become a regular expression used to express
frustration, or a sense of inevitable doom. D’oh!
You should be careful not to mix this up with ‘duh!’, which is valley girl
speak (as heard in southern California) for ‘everyone knows that’ or
‘obviously’. You may have seen television characters rolling their eyes in
exasperation and exclaiming ‘Duh!’ when they think someone is being
stupid.
So, you might say ‘D’oh!’ when you’ve been stupid, and ‘Duh!’ when you
think someone else is being stupid, but then duh!, everyone knows that,
right?
© British Broadcasting Corporation 2008
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