67(22) a. I said to them, ‘ What! Are you crazy? It’s my brother. I would never shoot
him.’ (2015 Ferraro Deretchin, Two armies, one family [COCA])
b. What! That’s terrible news.” (2015 Gunasingam, Coming home [COCA])
The OED dates the surprise use of what from the ME period (s.v. what , def. B
2a), but BTS (s.v. hwæt , def. III) supplies three OE examples of hwæt “express-
ing astonishment.”^33 Note that in two of these cases, however, hwæt collocates
with interjective eala (see above):
(23) a. Eala hwæt Drihten deofl es costunga geþyldelice abær (HomS 10 (BlHom
3) 129)
‘O how patiently our Lord bore the devil’s tempting’
b. Eala hwæt! Se awyrgda wraðe geþohte/ þæt he heofencyninge heran ne
wolde,/ fæder frefergendum. (Sat 315– 17)
‘Alas, what! The devil angrily thought that the heavenly king would not
hear, consoling father’
c. Hwæt , he frecnu gestreon funde mænegum bewrigen on weorulde, wætere
oððe eorðan. (Met 8.58)
‘What, he perilous wealth found, perilous to many concealed in the world,
in water or earth’
What is also used in Middle and Early Modern English as a means to hail or
call the attention of a person, especially in combination with the primary interjec-
tion ho/ hou (OED: s.v.v. what , def. B 3; what ho , int. and adj., def. A; MED: s.v.
what , interj, def. 1a; Schmidt 1874– 75: s.v. what , def. e; Onions 1986 : s.v. what ,
def. B8; Blake 1992 ; Sauer 2012 : 167, 172).^34 Because of the combination of what
with ho , a multifunctional primary interjection used to express surprise, distress,
indignation, etc. (see OED: s.v. ho , int.^1 and n.^2 , def. A1; MED: s.v. h ō , interj., def.
3; Taavitsainen 1995a : 451, 1997 : 587– 588), this form is used especially when the
summoning is accompanied by some excitement or impatience or as a means of
incitement to action. That is, what (ho) is seen as combining an expression of the
speaker’s emotion with a call for the hearer’s attention. Though this use appears
in Chaucer (see Oizumi 1991– 92), it is much less frequent than the ‘surprise’
use; however, it is very frequent in Shakespeare (see Spevack 1969 ). What in this
usage is almost invariably followed by a personal name or noun:
(24) a. “ What! Nicholay! What , how! What , looke adoun!/ Awak, and thenk on
Cristes passioun!” (1387– 1400 Chaucer, CT A.Mil. 3477– 78)
‘What! Nicholas! What, how! What, look down! Awake and think of Christ’s
passion’
33 One of BT’s examples ( Juliana 167; see 6a) does not contain eala and may be interpreted as
meaning ‘how’ (see above n. 15).
34 Stanley (2000: 551n.) discusses two early scholars, C. W. M. Grein in 1861– 64 and R. Simons
in 1899, who likewise identifi ed a ‘surprise’ use of hwæt in Old English, but notes that their
distinction is no longer accepted by editors.
2.6 Later History of Exclamatory What