Hubba-Hubba

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there. This is Roberto from San Diego.

Hi, Roberto.

Hello.

Hi there.

So, my question to you guys is the following. There’s a word, well, actually, it’s two words, and I’d like to understand where it comes from. It’s hubba hubba.

Why, thank you.

I don’t think he was directing that at you, Grant.

Maybe.

No, not really.

Especially since now I know what it means, which is, well, okay, this came to me because my girlfriend calls me this sometimes, and I guess I was told it means kind of like, you know, sexy or good-looking or that kind of thing for a guy or a girl. But to me, because of the sound of the word, it kind of reminded me more of like, you know, some large person making funny sounds or that kind of thing.

So let’s just set the picture here, set the stage. You’re getting ready to go out for the night. You put on your silk shirt and your spats or whatever you wear when you go out.

Thanks a lot.

No, I don’t think I use a silk shirt. But, okay, let’s imagine I’m looking, you know, nice.

You’re looking fine, right?

You’re looking great.

You’re kind of foxy, right? And she knows it.

You’re fierce.

You’re fierce.

And she’s looking at you and she goes, hubba, hubba, right? Because you look great. That’s what you’re talking about.

Exactly.

Okay.

You know, I had not heard of this term when she said it a couple times. And I went and asked like five or six different people. And everyone knew what it meant except me. Now, some of my friends are a little younger than I am. You know, I won’t say exactly how old I am, but let’s say I’m around my 40s, and they’re probably their 20s. And I don’t know if that has anything to do with it or not, but everyone said the same thing. Everyone said, you know, what she thought it is.

I’m surprised that the younger generation knew it better than you, but maybe you’re an anomaly, because this term goes back at least to the 1940s.

Really?

Yeah.

It was particularly big during World War II, and it was the kind of thing that soldiers would say when they saw an attractive girl walking by. And you can find it in all of the mythology of the period. I say mythology knowingly because there’s always a certain amount of backstory and jokes and kind of like just the kind of the running gags of the military life and the kind of stuff that Bob Hope might have talked about on his USO tour.

I can totally hear him saying that.

Hava, hava.

Yeah.

So there’s all this kind of joking environment. And it’s the kind of thing a guy would say when a pretty lady would go by.

Right?

What’s really interesting about this is not only was it popular during World War II, but there’s a possibility that’s older than that. I’m going to give you just a tiny tangent.

Okay.

Dr. John Leiter is probably the preeminent American slang lexicographer, and I learned from him. He taught me a great deal. And he uncovered some evidence last year that it might come from a man they called the monkey man, Kiki the Habba Habba Man, who in the early 1900s was something of a figure of, I don’t know, entertainment? Well, it’s something that would never go over today because P.T. Barnum enlisted him to dress up like a Zulu. I’m putting that in quotes. Basically, it was a racist display. He pretended to be a savage.

Okay.

And he was called Kiki, or I’m pretty sure it’s Kiki, or it might have been Kiki, K-I-K-I, the Habba Habba Man. And he would shout, Habba Habba. That was his thing. And people would shout it back at him in his public appearances.

Yes.

And so Dr. Leiter has spent a little bit of time, and he thinks there may be a strong case for hubba hubba coming from the hubba hubba shout that this Kiki the Wildman would make and that people would make back at him. He would stand outside attractions at carnivals and fairs and say hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba trying to get everybody to come in. And at one point he says, he quotes one of the sources, Dr. Leiter does, thousands of children were shouting Habba Habba in the city of Seattle in 1909. And so, I mean, if you’ve got thousands of people shouting this.

Now, the question is, how do we go from this Kiki the Wild Man to soldiers and a pretty lady?

I don’t know, but language is strange. Sling does move from place to place.

Yeah, it got picked up in baseball, too.

Right, moves from meaning to meaning.

Yeah, it’s possible.

It’s possible.

But we do know it was very solid in slangy English in the 1940s. And I guess it’s interesting, too, that it goes the other way, right? I mean, in this case, it’s not the guy calling the girl. It’s the girl calling the guy.

Yeah.

Which I don’t know if that happens in other terms often or not. But I think that’s interesting, too.

Well, in your case, obviously.

Well, Roberto, I hope we’ve helped a little bit. The origin is indistinct, as is often the case with slang. But it’s got a long history. And I love the fact that it’s still being used today. Because that kind of interjection with a kind of fairly solid meaning is kind of rare in English.

Yeah, yeah.

I still associate it with World War II and, you know, sailors on leave and that kind of thing. For me, I think it’s a—I imagine that there’s a Warner Brothers cartoon somewhere with Bugs Bunny doing this. Actually, with Elmer Fudd doing this to Bugs Bunny, who’s in drag. That’s how—I don’t know that there was an episode, but that in my mind that could have taken place.

That would work for me, I guess.

Fine.

Yeah.

All right.

Roberto, thanks for calling.

Well, thank you, guys. Appreciate your time.

Yeah, send a picture.

All right.

We’ll talk to you later.

Bye-bye.

Great.

Have a nice day.

Bye-bye.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Hubba hubba.

If I said hubba hubba to a random person on the street, do you think they’d smack me?

Yes.

Oh, okay.

Send your questions to words@waywordradio.org or give us a call. But try it.

Ow!

Why are they just smacking me?

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