1210. This week, we look at why the sound "shh" means "be quiet" in so many different languages, and we trace the phrase "broad daylight" back to Old English to find out why it shows up so often in crime stories.
1210. This week, we look at why the sound "shh" means "be quiet" in so many different languages, and we trace the phrase "broad daylight" back to Old English to find out why it shows up so often in crime stories.
The "Shh" segment was by Karen Lunde, a career writer and editor. She writes I'll Go First, a newsletter where she shares her story, then hands you a writing prompt and a metaphorical pen. Find her on igofirst.org.
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Grammar Girl here. I'm Mignon Fogarty. This week, we'll talk about why the S-H-sound means "hush" in so many different languages, and why we can describe daylight as "broad."
This next segment is by Karen Lunde.
by Karen Lunde
If you've ever held a fussy newborn baby, you've probably found yourself making a "voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant."
In other words, you whispered, "Shh!" And you probably thought nothing of it. After all, it's the sound we make to calm crying babies. It's also the thing we might hiss when someone talks during a movie or theater performance. For English speakers, "shh" simply means "be quiet."
But "shh" isn't just for English speakers. It turns out the sound, or some close variation, is spread across many languages. And it means roughly the same thing: "hush."
A French speaker might say, "Chut!" while a German speaker might say "Pst!", adding a plosive P-sound before the sibilant S-H. A Spanish speaker might say "shh" like English speakers do, but might also use "chist!" If you're up on your Latin, you might know that classical Latin doesn't even have a "sh" sound. So, does that mean Roman parents were completely helpless when it came to shushing? Nope, they had "st!', a clipped little sound with a similar vibe.
So, in many languages, the sound we use to shush babies or chatty people has a hissing quality. But why?
For starters, the "shh" sound is easy for humans to make. It's something called a "voiceless fricative," which means our vocal cords don't vibrate when we make it. Try this: Put your fingers gently against your throat and say, "Zzzz!" Feel the vibrations? Now try it with a sustained "Shhhh!" There are no vibrations. So, we can make the sound softly and continuously. Imagine a parent pacing with a crying baby on their shoulder at 1 a.m. while murmuring a steady "Shhh!"
And speaking of babies, another theory is that repeated "shh" sounds create a kind of steady, rhythmic sound that might be a little bit like what an infant might hear in the womb. But it's not likely we were ever consciously thinking, "I'll bet this was what the world sounded like for the baby before she was born."
And still another theory is that the sound mimics nature. Think of how you might try to imitate the sound of wind in the trees or rushing water.
But in the end, these are all just plausible explanations, not true origin stories. When it comes to solving the riddle of why "shh" is such a common hushing sound across languages and cultures, the answer is pretty unsatisfying — we just don't know for sure.
And because "shh" is more of a sound we make than a formal word, it's also not something we can easily trace to a specific etymological source. Etymonline says the two-letter "S-H' form is an interjection "used to urge or request silence" dating back to 1847, and says that the word "hush" used in this sense dates back to around 1600. But that's looking at the written expressions rather than a sound used to convey a meaning. It's likely that the hushing sound is a lot older.
So, linguists don't know exactly why the way we hush one another around the world often involves consonant sounds like shh, ss, or st. But research on sound symbolism suggests humans do seem to make surprisingly consistent connections between certain sounds and certain kinds of meanings and experiences. We tend to connect sharp sounds, like the ones made by the consonants K and T, with spiky shapes, while M and B are often linked to softer, rounder ones. High-pitched vowel sounds remind us of small things, but lower-pitched vowels feel larger or heavier. These patterns don't mean sounds have universal meanings, but they do suggest that humans might not experience speech sounds as entirely arbitrary.
So, even though we don't have a firm understanding of why "shh" is such a widespread sound for requesting — or even demanding — silence, we at least know this: If you were in a movie theater anywhere in the world and someone was making far too much noise while rummaging around with their soft drink and popcorn, it's a safe bet that "shh!" would not only get their attention, but would also get your meaning across.
That segment was by Karen Lunde, a career writer and editor. She writes I'll Go First, a newsletter where she shares her story, then hands you a writing prompt and a metaphorical pen. Find her on igofirst.org.
by Mignon Fogarty
A Grammarpaloozian named Mahala wrote, "Hello! I absolutely love your podcast. Thanks so much for everything you do for the writing and language communities!
I have a topic suggestion: the origin of ‘broad daylight.’ Stephan Pastis created a ‘Pearls Before Swine’ comic using this idiom, and it made me curious about why we typically only use this term in relation to a crime. ‘He robbed the place in broad daylight.’ Just after I googled the origin, I brought up a news page on my work computer; lo and behold, a headline announced that a man shot a food truck owner "in broad daylight."
Thanks for the kind words and the great question! And seeing “in broad daylight” in a headline immediately after looking it up will definitely get your attention.
So at first, "broad daylight" does sound a little strange if you think about it. We usually use "broad" to describe something wide, like broad shoulders, a broad grin, or maybe a broad range of choices. You can't measure the width of daylight, so what's broad about it?
Well, in the phrase "broad daylight," "broad" is using a slightly different meaning — "open or full" — that used to be more common and goes all the way back to Old English.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the phrase "broad day," meaning "the full light of day," goes all the way back to the late 1300s.
This type of "broad" used to be paired with other words too — Noah Webster used the example "broad sunshine" in his 1828 dictionary — generally the same idea as "broad daylight" — and the Oxford English Dictionary has "broad air" as an older way to describe the open air.
And you can find that "full, plain, or unmistakable" sense of "broad" in a few other places too. Your great-great-grandmother might have said she was "broad awake" — that's an older version of "wide awake." If someone drops a "broad hint," the hint is so plain that nobody could miss it.
But as you noticed, people often use "broad" this way today when they're talking about crimes, as in “The thieves drove away with the ATM in broad daylight.”
Dictionaries definitely call out the crime connection too. For example, the Cambridge Dictionary says a crime committed in broad daylight happens when it “could have been seen and prevented,” and Collins says the phrase expresses surprise that a crime was committed during the day.
Nobody says, "I bought groceries in broad daylight," because of course you did, unless you work the night shift. But we usually think of crimes as happening under the cover of darkness, when nobody can see you. So when someone gets robbed at noon, the everyone-can-see-you light is the shocking part — and using the phrase "in broad daylight" is how we emphasize that the robber didn't even try to hide.
I do have to note that the expression isn’t exclusively limited to crime though. For example, you could also say that someone spotted a nocturnal animal like a bat in broad daylight too. The important idea is almost always that it was unusual for the event to happen in daylight.
So the "broad" in the phrase "broad daylight" literally means the light is full and open, and the implication of the phrase is usually that the act occurring in daylight is shocking or unexpected, which is exactly why it works so well in crime stories.
Thanks for the question, Mahala, and thanks for your support as a Grammarpaloozian!
Finally, I have a familect story from Paul:
"Hello Grammar Girl, I'm Paul from Batavia, New York, and I have a familect to share.
Years ago, when my now-adult son and daughter were maybe three and five years old, respectively, we went to The Strong Museum of Play in Rochester for a special event. I think it was a teddy bear hospital or something. There were some wandering singers and musicians, including someone playing the banjo.
It was a fun day, but no matter where we turned, we kept hearing the banjo player and he would get louder the closer he got.
My daughter Rebecca was saying she didn't want Joe Ban to follow us because it was giving her a headache. She kept telling me to ask Joe Ban to stop, and Joe Ban was too loud, and Joe Ban was giving her a headache, and Joe Ban was this, and Joe Ban was that.
Eventually, I asked her who was Joe Ban. She said Joe Ban was playing that music. I didn't make the connection until I realized she thought the guy playing the banjo was named Joe Ban.
So still, 25 years later, if someone in the family has a really bad headache, we ask if it's a Joe Ban headache.
Thanks for your great podcast. I recommend it to all of my students. Bye."
Thanks, Paul. I love that. You should have one of those people who draws caricatures at state fairs and places like that draw a picture of Joe Ban for her sometime. Or maybe it's just best left to the imagination. Thanks again!
And remember, everyone, if you want to share your familect story, you can find the instructions in the show notes.
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to Nat Hoopes; Morgan Christianson; Rebekah Sebastian; Maram Elnagheeb; Dan Feierabend; Holly Hutchings; and Steven Schapansky, who still has a working VCR.
And I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl.
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