I have no clue how the phrase "Do what?" evolved. Honestly, I never really noticed it until a friend in Ye Olde College Town (Megella*) asked what the hell it meant and why people used it. One Thanksgiving, Sweet Pickles tried to school all us Yankees on Southernisms. He was funny as hell, but I still didn't know what many of the phrases meant. Or why they were used. Or how they came about.
But "Do what?" fascinated me. Until then, I had never really heard it. Then a colleague used it I asked her what it meant. I don't remember how she described it, but basically, it was similar to "say what?".
Last week at work, someone said something, I have no idea what, and without even thinking about it, I said, "Do what?"
Luckily, no one asked me what the hell I was talking about.
*Is that the correct spelling?
3 comments:
I always interpreted "Do What" as the tale end of a longer query: "You want me to do what?" or "You are going to do what?"
That always made sense to me, especially in so far as it expressed a failure of communication resulting in an apparent non sequitor. As in the following:
Heard: "Tickle your ass with a feather?"
Response: "Do what?!?"
Said: "It's particularly nasty weather"
Response: "Oh, yeah. That's what I thought you said"
I think you're right--and an excellent example.
For a second I wondered if "Tickle your ass with a feather?" was a Southernism for bad weather.
Ha!! I was just thinking about "do what" this weekend.
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