An essay on yay!

I have been bugged for some time now about how to spell ‘yay’ this being a shortened version of hurrah or hooray. I had been spelling it ‘yeah’ but somehow that didn’t seem right. I tried 'yeh' and 'yah' but those definitely looked wrong. Today I finally went to the internet to see if I could find the answer. Since the word is a slang expression I didn’t think it would be in the dictionary, guess again bright angel!

‘Yea’ or ‘yeah’ are valid slang expressions meaning ‘yes’ while my word ‘yay’, which until this very moment I knew the sound of but not actually how to spell, means ‘hurrah’. I came across a Yahoo chat room espousing the spelling ‘yay’ and said to myself this is way wrong; that is obviously the way some illiterate person would spell this word, but then there it was in the dictionary ‘yay’ so I now stand corrected and have added it to my vocabulary. Henceforth I will use ‘yay’ except I believe hurrah and hooray are more robust words, and not in any danger of confusion.

Yay! I just returned from getting Frida her rabies and distemper shots here in town with the local vet; it cost all of US$30! (Pretty good deal if you have healthy animals, not so great if you really need serious care as his capabilities are limited). But, yay! It was cheap, cheap, cheap and we even have a shot card with her photo scanned on it if we need to take her across the border. He's great for protocol on getting animals back across the border.

Yay! Hurricane Rick has almost evaporated and is going way south and east of us. Yay! We finally had Cocquilles St. Jacques last night and it was delicious. Yay! I have the rest of the day to myself and the girls will all leave at 3pm, no houseguests, no obligations! Yay!

Yay! I get to watch my favorite show Law and Order tonight. Esperando is back to California until Friday then we will start getting ready to leave on our trip to the Mexican Mining Convention in Veracruz, followed by a few days of being tourists in Puebla, Cuernavaca and La Paz. Puebla is a city of great food and ceramics. Yay! Two of my favorite things. In Puebla, we are going to stay in a really interesting sounding old former Jesuit monastery, La Sacristia de las Jesuitas, which is decorated with antiques in all the rooms and is said to have a very good restaurant besides. Yay! Hooray, hurrah, let the good times roll!