Legal Writing

Hear, Hear!

By Maeve Maddox

Dave Moloney has asked for a post on the

pernicious misuse of the term “hear hear’ as?”Here here”.

I’ve tried to find examples of the misspelling “here, here” on the web, but without much success. I did find a CD with the title Here, Here, and Here.

If you’ve ever watched a session of the House of Commons on television, you’ll have heard shouts of “Hear, hear!” These are shouts of approval. The shouters are expressing agreement with whatever a speaker has said. For example, the Daily Mail (Online) describes the response to a remark by David Cameron that the previous administration had “broken the nation’s covenant with [the British] armed forces”:

The moment he spoke this line the hall erupted in defiant shouts of ‘hear hear’ and, from one man near me, ‘bloody right’.

The phrase is a contraction of “Hear him, Hear him,” meaning “listen to what the man’s saying.” According to some commentators, it is sometimes used ironically.

Full post as published by Daily Writing Tips on July 02, 2010 (boomark / email).