Talk:helluv

This entry has survived Wiktionary's verification process.

Please do not re-nominate for verification without comprehensive reasons for doing so.

---

helluv

Really? bd2412 T 19:34, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

No. Probably thinking of the informal adjective helluva. SemperBlotto 19:46, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Apparently; google books:helluv has 59 hits. It seems to be a back-formation from (deprecated template usage) helluva — recognizing the (deprecated template usage) -a as reflecting the indefinite article, then diverging in interpretations of the remaining (deprecated template usage) helluv:

• in some uses, taking it to be an adverb (perhaps on the model of (deprecated template usage) quite, where you can have both "he's quite a guy" and "I quite misunderstood").
• in some uses, taking it to be the non-count counterpart (since (deprecated template usage) a is only used with count nouns).
• in some uses, simply writing (deprecated template usage) helluva as (deprecated template usage) helluv a.

All very odd.

—Ruakh_TALK 19:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it's more readily a back-formation from hella (primarily N CA slang), as a user of helluv may be assuming that to be the "fully pronounced" version of the contraction-sounding hella. In any case, it's the same as hella, and was likely altered from that useful intensifier. -- Thisis0 21:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

As I see it, most, say 15, of the 20 or so usable examples of the 59 raw hits are clearly an attempt to capture the change in emphasis in informal speech between "a HELL of a" and "a helluva". There are also elisions of "the hell of" as in "helluv it" ("the hell of it") and elision of "hell have" as in "where the helluv you been" ("where the hell have you been"). I took a stab at sharpening the entry with multiple senses. I also found three quotes that I can't parse out. DCDuring 23:01, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh. I don't know how to designate the PoS for what I read as elisions of two different parts of speech combined into a phrase, especially "the hell of it" (noun?) and "hell have" (verb?). DCDuring 23:07, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I have entered my readings of various elisions as senses. Maybe they should be considered parts of different (somewhat speculative) etymologies. There seem to me to be multiple elision-etymologies that end up with the same spelling and then another word, not parsable as an elision, that users seem to have taken from some of all of the other senses. I think I have all the pieces (maybe too many), but the entry may not be organized right. DCDuring 23:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Your adjective sense 3, and adverb intensifier sense are those which came from NorCal's hella. But indeed, different writers tend to use all possible contractions to represent speech, as shown searching BGC for "where the hella you been". -- Thisis0 15:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Whatsay we keep the entry with the one more-or-less cited sense and put the other senses on the citations page with their citations and provide some usage note to help people interpret possible uses of the term. DCDuring TALK 18:37, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

rfvpassed, due to the spoken nature of this term the few print cites (books all) indicate positive results. - [The]DaveRoss 00:45, 13 April 2008 (UTC)