hip hip hooray
{{Short description|A cheer to express congratulation}}{{Redirect|Three cheers|the American musical|Three Cheers|the My Chemical Romance album|Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge}}
{{other uses|Hip Hip Hurray (disambiguation)}}
Hip hip hooray (also hippity hip hooray; hooray may also be spelled and pronounced hoorah, hurrah, hurray etc.) is a cheer called out to express congratulation toward someone or something, in the English-speaking world and elsewhere, usually given three times.
By a sole speaker, it is a form of interjection. In a group, it takes the form of call and response: the cheer is initiated by one person exclaiming "Three cheers for...[someone or something]" (or, more archaically, "Three times three"[https://books.google.com/books?id=dlfPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA410 Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, Volume 9]. 1834, James Fraser. Google Books. p. 410. Retrieved February 19, 2013.Wright, John Martin Frederick (1827). [https://archive.org/details/almamaterorseve03wriggoog/page/n125 Alma Mater: Or, Seven Years at the University of Cambridge]. Black, Young, and Young, p. 19. Google Books.Byron, Henry James; Davis, Jim (January 19, 1984). [https://books.google.com/books?id=o7g8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA42 Plays by H. J. Byron: The Babes in the Wood, The Lancashire Lass, Our Boys, The Gaiety Gulliver]. p. 42. Google Books. Retrieved February 19, 2013.Twain, Mark (1890 - 1910). [https://books.google.com/books?id=HHS2hL-cxRAC&pg=PA66 The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories]. Digireads.com Publishing, January 1, 2004. Google Books. Retrieved February 19, 2013.), then calling out "hip hip" (archaically, "hip hip hip") three times, each time being responded by "hooray" or "hurrah".
The cheer continues to be used to express congratulations. In Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom, the cheer is usually expressed after the singing of "Happy Birthday to You".{{cite web|url=https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/aussie-birthday-ritual-shocks-americans-living-down-under/news-story/731e220dc996e06114622625120ec75e|title=Aussie birthday ritual shocks Americans living Down Under|publisher=News Corp Australia|last=Khalil|first=Shireen|date=3 June 2021|access-date=23 February 2023}} In Canada and the United Kingdom, the cheer has been used to greet and salute the monarch at public events.{{cite web|url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/queen-unveils-plaque-marking-navy-s-100th-1.906555|title=Queen unveils plaque marking navy's 100th|publisher=Canadian Broadcasting Corporation|website=www.cbc.ca|access-date=23 February 2023|date=29 June 2010}}{{cite web|url=https://www.ctvnews.ca/queen-calls-royal-jubilee-a-humbling-experience-1.835460|website=www.ctvnews.ca|publisher=BellMedia|title=Queen calls Royal Jubilee a 'humbling experience'|date=5 June 2012|access-date=23 February 2023}}
History
The call was recorded in England in the beginning of the 19th century in connection with making a toast.{{Cite journal| doi = 10.2307/453841| issn = 0003-1283| volume = 36| issue = 2| pages = 83–92| last = Read| first = Allen Walker| title = The Rebel Yell as a Linguistic Problem| journal = American Speech| date = 1961-05-01| jstor = 453841}} Eighteenth century dictionaries list "Hip" as an attention-getting interjection, and in an example from 1790 it is repeated.{{Cite journal|title = The Times (London)| date= 1790-11-27| page = 2}} 'Sir Charles engag'd one day at dice / Hip! hip! come hither John, he cries;' "Hip-hip" was added as a preparatory call before making a toast or cheer in the early 19th century, probably after 1806. By 1813, it had reached its modern form, hip-hip-hurrah.{{cite web|last=Brown|first=Peter Jensen|title=Three Cheers, Hip-Hip-Hurrah and Tom and Jerry|url=http://esnpc.blogspot.com/2014/05/three-cheers-hip-hip-hurrah-and-tom-and.html|work=Early Sports 'n Pop-Culture Blog|date=26 May 2014 |access-date=27 May 2015}}
It has been suggested that the word "hip" stems from a medieval Latin acronym, "Hierosolyma Est Perdita", meaning "Jerusalem is lost",Gabay's Copywriter's Compendium, Jonathan Gaby, pub. (Elsevier) 2006, {{ISBN|0-7506-8320-1}}, p.669{{cite book|last=Brewer|first=Ebenezer Cobham|title=Dictionary of phrase and fable|year=1898|publisher=Henry Altemus Company|location=Philadelphia|isbn=1-58734-094-1|url=http://www.bartleby.com/81/8296.html}} a term that gained notoriety in the German Hep hep riots of August to October 1819. Cornell's Michael Fontaine disputes this etymology, tracing it to a single letter in an English newspaper published August 28, 1819, some weeks after the riots. He concludes that the "acrostic interpretation ... has no basis in fact."{{cite web|last=Fontaine|first=Michael|title=On the Acronym Origin of the English Phrase Hep! Hep!|url=https://www.academia.edu/9305194}} Ritchie Robertson also disputes the "folk etymology" of the acronym interpretation,{{cite book|first=Ritchie|last=Robertson|title=The 'Jewish Question' in German Literature, 1749-1939 : Emancipation and its Discontents|year=1999|publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn= 9780191584312}} citing Jacob Katz.{{cite book |last=Katz |first=Jacob |title=Die Hep-Hep-Verfolgungen des Jahres 1819 |year=1994 |page=29 |author-link=Jacob Katz}}
One theory about the origin of "hurrah" is that the Europeans picked up the Mongol exclamation "hooray" as an enthusiastic cry of bravado and mutual encouragement. See Jack Weatherford's book Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.Murphy, Joseph W. (November 21, 2005 ). [http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.lang/2005-11/msg01153.html "Re: Hurray!!!! A Mongol Word?"]. Tech-Archive.net. Retrieved February 19, 2013.