English to French translation

Ha-ha

March 2, 2005

It's a word, believe it or not, and it comes from the French exclamation of surprise : Ha ha! (according to all the dictionaries I consulted). It designates a ditch that serves as a boundary without obstructing the view. Presumably, it is so unobstrusive that you only see it when you're up close, hence the surprise. Here is an example: the ha-ha in Greenwich.

What I'd like to know is why it was named after a French exclamation? Is it just that the French, being more expansive, expressed their surprise when encountering this odd construction while cool British people kept their reserve and didn't react? The other point I'd like to make is that not many French people I know would say Ha ha! when surprised… Ah! Maybe, or Oh!, but not Ha ha! Very odd indeed.

I'm off interpreting this morning for the last meeting of the two-year project I've been involved with. I'll ask the French project partners what they think about this particular pressing issue over dinner.

Comments

I have always assumed that the origin of the term "ha-ha" was the laughter when your unsuspecting companion falls into it (or off of it in the case of a retaining-wall-type ha-ha).
Many original ha-has on estates have now been filled in, perhaps because they were a bit of a hazard.

There are quite a few ha-has (if that's the plural, or maybe it's has-has) in Jane Austen's novels. Although not many belly laughs.

According to Michael Symes' glossary of garden history (I have translated a few things on historical gardens), as you say, the names comes from the cry of exclamation '(it should be "aha") as one comes unexpectedly upon the ditch. The concept is described by Dezallier d'Argenville but was popularised in its recognisable English form by Charles Bridgeman and man othrs. The ha-ha at Rousham, Oxfordshire still fulfils its original function' (i.e. dividing the garden from pasture land outside and preventing cattle from getting into the garden). In widespread use in the eighteenth century.

Thanks for those precisions Margaret. Unfortunately I had to hurry back to Brighton right after the meeting for fear of getting stuck in snowy Kent, so couldn't carry out my "what do you say when you're surprised?" survey amongst the French people who were there. Shame.

I doubt it would have done you much good anyway; I strongly suspect French habits of exclamation have changed in the last 400 years. The OED's etymology:

F. haha (17th c. in Hatz.-Darm.) ‘an obstacle interrupting one's way sharply and disagreeably, a ditch behind an opening in a wall at the bottom of an alley or walk’; according to French etymologists, from ha! exclamation of surprise.

Oh, and it's a word in French too; you can find a nice entry with quotes and history here:
http://atilf.atilf.fr/tlfv3.htm

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