Yeah, yay, yah & ya
I certainly would not consider myself the spelling expert but I often see yeah and yay misused so I thought I’d have a little education session.
- Yeah - pronounced ye-uh as in yes
"Hey Jen, are you going to with us to the mall."- girl a; "Yeah, I’ll go"- girl b - Yay - rhymes with and is a synomym of hooray. It’s used in cases of excitement.
"Did I tell you I won an ipod?" - girl a; "No! Oh that is exciting. Yay!" - girl b - Yah - is also an expersion of agreement but there is no excitement.
"Hey are you ready to go" - girl a; "yah" - girl b - Ya - means you
"How are ya?" - Yea - is a very old-fashioned formal way of saying “yes,” used mainly in voting. It’s the opposite of—and rhymes with—“nay.”
"All in favor say yea, all opposed nay." - and if that wasn’t confusing enough yay can also refer to height, as in "when I was yay big" [holding hand up]
Did you catch all that?
I Googled this and your site came up… I’m ALWAYS getting these wrong. So now I’m bookmarking this page for the next time I get confused.
Thanks!
Thank you I have a friend who constantly claims that yea- is the same as yay. and we always use it as an abbreviation for yeah.
[...] found this site which had the best [...]
[...] all opposed say yay - yeah that is my pet peeve. Check out my previous post if you want to know the different between yeah, yay, & yea. [...]
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,951355,00.html This Time article says it’s “Yeah or Nay”, not yea.
I hate when I see people use “yeah” when they really mean “yay”. Like, “I’m going to the beach today! Yeah!”! Why dont they understand that is just wrong…it doesnt even sound right! I am no grammer or spelling expert, but that seems so obvious to me.