A History of Meh, from Leo Rosten to Auden to The Simpsons

September 8, 2013 10:48 AM

The problem with tracing meh over time, as with so many fleeting interjections, is that it’s terribly underrepresented in the linguistic and lexicographical literature.

Scene 2, starring W.H. Auden (1969):

The British poet W.H. Auden didn't think much of the first lunar landing, and he wrote a poem about it.

Worth going to see? I can well believe it.
Worth seeing? Mneh! I once rode through a desert
and was not charmed: give me a watered
lively garden, remote from blatherers

Scene 3, starring the writers of The Simpsons (c. 1994):

INT. HALL OF RECORDS—A FEW MINUTES LATER

Lisa waits at the main desk. A clerk arrives and plops down a two-foot tall pile of fan-fold computer paper covered with tiny print.

CLERK
Here you go. The results of last month's mayoral election. All 48,000 voters and who each one of them voted for.

LISA
I thought it was a secret ballot.

CLERK
(DOESN'T CARE) Meh.

posted by whyareyouatriangle (11 comments total)

mehtymology!
posted by byanyothername at 11:03 AM on September 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

I read it. And I'm really trying to stop myself, but I can't. I thought the article was... well... meh.
posted by ubiquity at 11:26 AM on September 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

Etymology articles are usually open ended, works in progress meandering along until some new bit of evidence appears.
posted by stbalbach at 11:39 AM on September 8, 2013

To my ear meh and mnyeh are two different words. "meh" is "um" + "eh" while "mnyeh" is "maybe" + "yeahno".
posted by grog at 11:40 AM on September 8, 2013

Direct communication from Swartzwelder? We have a new prophet.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:54 AM on September 8, 2013

Meh, used as a metafilter comment, has been called out as a tired, lazy epithet.
posted by various at 12:52 PM on September 8, 2013

How is it that Bugs Bunny never gets credit for his contributions? I find it cartoonist.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 2:54 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Mehtafilter.
with apologies to conductor Zubin Mehta
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:59 PM on September 8, 2013

mneh.

for my next trick:

wnat
posted by Auden at 5:50 PM on September 8, 2013

Not exactly, but close:

Bart: "Nothing you say can upset us. We're the MTV generation."

Lisa: "We feel neither highs nor lows."

Homer: "Really? What's it like?"

Lisa: "Eh."
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:25 PM on September 8, 2013

The best part of "meh" is how well it fits between "win" and "fail" so that people don't have to think about the quality of a given thing for any longer than it takes to drool out a single syllable. This is efficient.
posted by Legomancer at 4:55 AM on September 9, 2013