Bethumped by Words

I was listening to one of Kerry Greenwood's fabulous Phryne Fisher audiobooks, Death at Victoria Dock,when two things caught my attention. She started the chapter off with a quote from Shakespeare, "Zounds, I was never so bethumpt with words, Since I first called my brother's father Dad". 

First was the narrators pronunciation of zounds. I always assumed it rhymed with mounds, but the the narrator pronounced it to sound like zoonds. Well, I thought, that can't be right. I had a dim memory of an old movie, perhaps starring Errol Flynn, in which the actor clearly pronounced it rhyming with mounds. The movies can't be wrong, can they? I took a look in the dictionary and low and behold, the narrator was correct. Zounds is a euphemism for a 15th century exclamation, "God's Wounds". I shall endeavor to pronounce zounds to rhyme with wounds from now on. 

The second thing that I noticed was the use of the word "Dad" in a Shakespeare quote. No way could "Dad" have been around that long! I thought it came into use in the 1950's. Surely Father and Papa were in use before then. Wrong again. The dictionary said Dad has been in use since at least 1592. 

I must have been thinking of "daddy-o", which did indeed come into use in the mid 1950s. You learn something new every day.

Later, Daddy-o.