The formations with the adverb up are straightforward since the expression originated in the act of raising or lifting up. 'A man who sold bootlaces in Sheffield was called 'Opsi-daisy.' A drunken man, being found by his wife lying on his back in a gutter, was thus addressed by her: 'Eh!-art tha lookin' for daisies upards?''Īlthough the exclamations seem nonsensical, there is lexical logic behind their origins. UPSI-DAISY, an interjectional remark addressed to children when they fall down. The hyphenated form upsi-daisy was defined in a 1888 glossary of words 'used in the neighbourhood of Sheffield' thusly: Other 18th-century writers began to transcribe it as up-a-daisy, and subsequent writers played around with phonetic spellings, including upsa daesy in the 19th century as well as the hyphenated and closed spelling upsidaisy. The variants with oops and whoops are believed to have led to those words becoming standard interjections in their own right.Īn early written record of the exclamation is in the form up a-dazy in English satirist Jonathan Swift's 1711 Journal to Stella.Ĭome, stand away, let me rise: Patrick take away the candle.

The source word is 18th-century up-a-daisy, itself from dialectal upaday. John McCright, The Addison County (Vermont) Independent, 19 July 2018 Upsy daisy! I lifted it out and away from the curious nose of the dog…. This gave me the opportunity to lean my torso inside the door and grab the hen by the leg. It was scared of me and stuck its head between the waterer and the wall. I got a hen down and literally raked it toward the door. Upsa-daisy,' he said as he lifted her to her feet and steadied her with his hands on her waist. Some examples are upsidaisy, upsa daesy, upsie-daisy, oops-a-daisy, oopsy-daisy, hoops-a-daisy, and whoops-a-daisy. The up, oops, and whoops variants (with or without a middle 'a' and with either a '-y' or '-ie') are all found in print. And then once the utterance has been decided upon, there's of course the issue regarding spelling it in hyphenated, closed, or open form. 2016Īs with many such exclamations that are more often used in speech than print, people often tend to hear and say it differently, making it problematically interesting to put in writing. Jessica Rach and Julia Pritchard, The Daily Mail (UK), 4 Sept. Whoopsie daisy: Making an extravagant entrance the star seemed to almost trip as he stepped onto the deck, possibly causing the subsequent hilarity. Their cutesy pronunciations usually distract just enough to prevent an emotional breakdown, and although typical usage of these terms is with children, they do apply to adult mishaps as well. Not to mention the classic 'whoopsie-doodle.'Īll of these are used to give reassurance or to give acknowledgment that something out of the ordinary is about to happen (like being lifted high into the air after said fall or stumble).

Oops meme song