As chief of staff to a California assemblyman, Bob Hartnagel chooses his words carefully — especially when his boss is around. But once the coast is clear, he can't resist tossing off a playful "Shut up!" to his colleagues. "It's kind of an exclamation point to whatever's going on," says Hartnagel, 32 years old.
Not too many years ago, the unrude use of "Shut up!" might have baffled linguists and just about everybody else. But the term has now made its way from schoolgirl chatter to adult repartee and into movies and advertising. People use it as much to express disbelief, shock and joy as to demand silence.
A recent ad for Hyundai's Elantra shows a young woman with a dealer. "Shut up!" screams the woman, who pokes the man in the chest each time he points out a feature that sounds too good to be true.
Editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary are considering a new entry for "Shut up!" in the next edition. "I think we should add it because it appears to be widespread," says senior editor Erin McKean.
Shut up! is the latest example of a linguistic phenomenon called amelioration, whereby a word or phrase loses its negative associations over time. A classic example is "nice," which meant "stupid" up through the 13th century. "Words that were once considered rude are now included in regular conversation, but in a context that lets you know it's not impolite," says Connie Eble, professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of "Slang and Sociability."
In the case of the Elantra ad, copy writers at the Richards Group in Dallas settled on the line while cramming last Memorial Day weekend for snappy, youthful expressions. At first, they considered having the actress say something like, "no way," or "you're kidding," but were inspired by the irreverent lingo that staff people in their twenties had been shouting across the agency's cubicles.
Once considered base, "shut up" has a long history. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a use in 16th century England was a figurative one, meaning "to withhold one's money or kindness from a person." In 1840, the New Orleans Picayune printed the first known slang/imperative use of "shut up," when a reporter referred to an officer's demand for a Dutchman to be quiet.
More recently, children's author Meg Cabot has given the phrase a literary twist. Her title character in "The Princess Diaries" favors it to express geeky teenage delight. Disney screenwriters wove it prominently into the movie adaptation. "I've had a lot of letters from parents thanking me sarcastically for introducing 'shut up!' to their kids' vocabulary," says Cabot.
The origins of the newest usage have fueled some debate. Cabot says she picked it up a few years ago from schoolgirls on Manhattan's Lower East Side. An earlier adopter of the phrase was the character Elaine on "Seinfeld."