Talk:D'oh!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the D'oh! article.
Article policies
TV
The Simpsons Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject The Simpsons, an attempt to improve and standardize articles related to The Simpsons. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. See also our guide to sources.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.
Mid This article is on a subject of Mid-importance within The Simpsons.
Tasks you can do:
Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 22 August 2005. The result of the discussion was KEEP.


I've changed the origin of the term d'oh to reflect what I'd heard once in something about the Simpsons. Only thing is, I don't really remember any specifics, such as which TV character's exclamation d'oh is based on - perhaps someone could dig around and find more stuff? - Bulbaboy 22:44, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)


I heard Dan Castellaneta (voice of Homer) say in an interview that "d'oh" was inspired by Jim Finlayson of "Laurel and Hardy" fame. Finlayson played a character who, when peeved, would say "dooooooh!" But Matt Groening wanted something more clipped to go with animation. "D'oh"! was the happy result.

I always thought it was supposed to be Homer exclaiming DAMN! then catching himself and replacing the second half of the word with oh! This makes more sense in the early 'clean' seasons ^^' This is also supported gently by what Homer said in Japanese in that one episode, it sounded to me like "shimatt-bakabi!" starting with a curse and ending in a less vulgar exclamation.

"Shimatta baka-ni!" Shimatta is "Damn it!", "baka-ni" is possibly "stupidly"/"foolishly". -220.108.200.62 05:50, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


The anime encyclopdia says it means "Oh, no!" or "damn!" Other sites suggest it can be used as a light swear to when you make a stupid mistake.[1] Prometheus-X303- 11:55, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

So nobody thinks it's starting to say 'damn' then catching oneself and finishing off with 'oh' ? I rescind the hypothesis then.

Quite possibly. In ordinary speech I'd say it's a contraction of 'tutting' plus 'oh dear', (or 'oh...') where 't' hardens to 'd'. It's just English. Points of note are the spelling D'oh (or D'oh!) and the clipped pronunciation. I wish the article focussed more on those rather than tending to suggest that this is a new word.Hakluyt bean 00:51, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Spelling

Wait, I'm confused. Is it spelt d'oh or d'ohh? Or is this just a case of imperialist american spelling conventions again? :) Borisblue 00:48, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

It's spelled as d'oh (with 1 "h"). Some times it's spelling is actually seen in the series. --Jort227 19:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
  • And talking of spelling, the possessive of it is its, not it's, which is a contraction of it is. But, as long as you know everything there is to know about the Simpsons, who cares about boring stuff like spelling?

D'oh! and woo-hoo! are my favorite Homerisms. PrometheusX303 23:29, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

In the German-dubbed version (the quality of which is debatable) Homer does pronounce "Nein!" (No!) in un unusual way. The diphtong /ai/ is very short and the "n" lengthened. I suggest: "Neinnnn!" Prorokini on Jan. 26th.

"D'oh" (with the apostrophe) was the spelling the alt.tv.simpsons newsgroup settled on during the second season of the show. The 'official' spelling from Gracie Films staffers & etc. continued to be "Doh" for several years. I would credit Jym Dyer with making the apostrophe variation popular. (Chris Baird, former a.t.s FAQ maintainer) 203.14.156.193 15:40, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

...I should probably dig up the old postings to discredit Fox's trademark claim.. 203.14.156.195 08:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Having grown up that long ago, I can guarantee those Homerites out there that while the Simpsons made this expression globally famous, it was alive and well--and spelled "duh"--as far back as the 1960s in the United States. I have accordingly added this background in the introductory paragraph. I think the d'oh spelling was either just a variation in phonetic spelling or an effort to be "new."63.88.31.30 (talk) 22:28, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not related to "duh." D'oh is a parent starting to say "damn" but censoring himself. Read the "Origin" section. I'm taking the "duh" part out. --67.171.210.188 (talk) 22:12, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gilligan's Isle

No mention of that fact that this was also one of the Skippers famous catchlines from Gilligan's Isle? Weird.--71.97.147.120 (talk) 19:06, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Variations?

I don't entirely understand how some of the "variations" actually count as... well... variations.
I do see how the japanese variant is different. And I can understand things like "d'oheth".
However, how is Gerald Ford and Homer saying "d'oh" together a variation of the word, "d'oh"?
How is the family saying "d'oh" together a variation of the word?
How is the fact that it's followed by someone else saying, "a deer" a variation of "d'oh"? Either way, it's just Homer saying the same word. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bladestorm (talk • contribs)

you're right, if he says "D'oh!", then that's not a variation... D'oh is the word itself, it has to be different to be a variation... "D'oeth", Da'oh (the "fake Homer"), and the "Doh, a deer, a female deer" entries I think are O.K., but if it's Homer saying D'oh, whether someone said it with him or not, it's just not a variation... - Adolphus79 16:51, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

It may have started as "variations", but now it's just a magnet for fanboys to add every reference to when Homer says it ... in other words, just another crufty list. And if you try to delete them, a bot will just restore them as "vandalism". <Sigh!> —141.156.240.102 (talk|contribs) 07:08, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Save D'oh!

My friends, if you have nick in Finnish wikipedia, then go save article D'oh!

[edit] Origins

Looks like we've got two sections entitled "Origin"... I'm not very good with these kinds of things; could someone combine the two or something? V6stang 00:52, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Leave it all to me. Remember one of Homer's most famous Homerisms:
"If something's hard to do, then it's not worth doing. "
--lEoN2323 19:32, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moby reformat

I just spent Way Too Much time doing an edit of this article. I broke the Usages section into two sections, since half of the entries were for video games. I moved some of the references, like Stargate SG-1 and others, into other sections.

I also tried to cleanup Variations (added a heading and a caveat comment) by removing "Homer and X said D'oh! at the same time in episode Y". By the same token, I tried to regularize "In Program Name episode "Episode Name", ..."

I also did a bunch of grammar reconstructs, clumping of similar paragraphs, regularized italics and double-quotes, and moved some of the figures and their accompanying paragraphs to more appropriate locations. Because so many of them were moved, changes to individual paragraphs may be hard to see.

Anywho, this will probably be my last Moby Edit for a while ... I think I've scratched that itch pretty well. —141.156.240.102 (talk|contribs) 09:42, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Good effort! I have turned "movies" and "cartoons" into further subsections, and deleted any cartoon references that did not have articles for referenced episodes ... that's the only "notability" needed for keeping this kind of creeping fancruft under control. —141.156.241.54 00:52, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
You did not go quite far enough, IMHO ... with "On ProgramX in EpisodeY," I say that if they don't both have articles in main namespace, then it ain't a worth a mention ... requiring a link to "ProgramX" is a no-brainer, but without requiring one for "EpisodeY" as well, we'll start getting multiple refs for the same show, and every one-time mention on any episode with its own article. (Can you imagine a sub-section on every time a character said, "D'oh!" on Friends?) --141.156.241.54 04:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Harold Bishop from Neighbours

I'm sure that the character of Harold Bishop from the Australian soap opera Neighbours was using "d'oh!" before The Simpsons even existed... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.243.228.52 (talk • contribs) 18:33, 27 November 2006

Indeed. In British English at any rate it's been a standard expression for yonks. Just a modification of 'Oh!' I can hear a Scots accent delivering it quite naturally. But encyclopedias (and media outlets) tend to need a Mr smith or Mr Jones to be the inventor of something, which is understandable. However I note it's not a copyrighted term. Hakluyt bean 03:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
He started doing that after 1989. It was something noticed by the alt.tv.simpsons newsgroup in the early days. 203.14.156.193 15:35, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] finlayson long and short

In the Laurel & Hardy films sometimes finlayson's d'oh is long, sometimes short. The article suggests that Homer's d'oh is a modification, but it would seem it was a correction of Castellaneta's first attempt, which seems slightly different. Hakluyt bean 03:51, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plagerized

This entire article is taken verbatum from reference.com. Jackmont Feb 26, 2007.

Uh, no; reference.com mirrors Wikipedia, which is permitted by the GFDL licence. It even cites Wikipedia, as required by the licence. Mindmatrix 16:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What!?

If you play a clip of "D'oh" backwards, it becomes "What." Examples: D'Oh, D'Oh Backwards, both. Just so you know... 71.193.69.15 02:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why the apostrophe?

I think this article needs to explain why the term D'oh has an apostrophe. Is it a contraction or a possessive? --IE 19:22, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

  • It's a catchphrase from an animated television comedy, does it really matter?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.239.133.107 (talk • contribs) , who despite their impatience still took the time to reply on 03:34, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
It's a contraction. The original expression by Jimmy Finlayson was "doooh". Long o, but sustained, usually with a quaver — the long "doooh" is a comedy cliche which you've probably heard. / edg ☺ ★ 03:43, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Wow! Thanks, Wikipedia! You're so informative and edifying!
I think the apostrophe is all important. I'm not sure it's a contraction, but perhaps it has the effect on pronunciation of a contraction. See http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2893904.ece for the fairly common use of this expression in other contexts (or just in ordinary language). For example:
"Doh!" Mr Wilkins closed his eyes, clasped his hands to his forehead, and tottered round in small circles" - According to Jennings (1954) Hakluyt bean 01:00, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chief Wiggim

In one of the episodes, Homer is arrested and says "D'oh!" and then Chief Wiggim replies with "That's what they all say...they all say D'oh" Would that be a varriation of it or anything? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.72.19.92 (talk) 07:01, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Changes to Episode names section

Hello, fellow editor ... I can see that it's been over a year since I did a Moby reformat to this article as 141.156.240.102 (talk · contribs) in November, 2006 (along with my evil twin, 141.156.241.54 (talk · contribs) a few weeks later) ... tonight I/(we?) have:

  1. listified the two parts of this section, each of which contained five episode titles and references to explain the puns,
  2. restored the first part back to a Much Older Version, one that displays "(Annoyed Grunt)" in the Wikipedia article names ... that was (after all) the whole point of the paragraph when originally introduced ... it just overgrew from sourcing for people unfamiliar with American popular culture, and
  3. linked the (Season 1x) to The Simpsons (season 10) through The Simpsons (season 19) (Easy-peasy!).

IMHO, the episode names look better as a bullet-lists, but Some Other Editor is welcome to turn them back into the Mothers of All Run-on Sentences if they prefer them that way ... please, just don't revert the disambiguations. :-)

Well, I've spent enough time "putting some lipstick on this pig" ... having scratched that itch, now I can just MOVE ON ... Happy Editing! —72.75.72.63 (talk · contribs) 07:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] D'oh in Italy

It is said that in Italy "D'oh" is left undubbed, with Castellaneta's own voice. That is FALSE. Italian dubber Accolla voices also Homer's annoyed grunt. I am removing that sentence from the article.--Gspinoza (talk) 19:12, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Japanese Dub

It says its written a certain way in hiragana in the Japanese dub. This doesn't make sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.148.195.224 (talk) 12:31, 17 May 2008 (UTC)