Learn English – What do “Yeep” and “Go yeep” mean

meaningonomatopoeia

Today’s New York Times carries the article titled “Veeps go yeep! Nation nods,” which is followed by the following statement:

“Obama versus Romney on Tuesday! That will be far more important than
the conventions. Or the first debate, which President Obama sort of
lost, in a game-changing moment that we are now prepared to completely
forget because it’s all about the next debate.”

I find no entry of “yeep” in any of Cambridge, Oxford, OALED, and Merriam-Webster dictionary. GoogleNgram registers “yeep,” of which usage is seen in 1840, peaks during 1920 – 1960, declining since then on the graph.

Incidentally, Readers English Japanese Dictionary published by a Japanese publisher registers “yeepie” as an American slang meaning “Youthful energetic elderly people involved in everything.”

What do “Yeep” and “Go yeep” mean? Does “go yeep” mean ‘get heated and go energetic”?

I wonder if “yeep” is as well-received English word as being flashily used in the headline of a leading English language newspaper, because I don’t find it in any of English dictionaries.

Best Answer

Sometimes people create funny words like Yeep by analogy with other onomatopoeic terms, like peep and cheep, which are two words often used to represent the sounds made by baby birds, which can be awfully noisy and ineffectual (remember that Big Bird is an issue in this presidential campaign and that as much as they might talk and squawk, chickens have no teeth). Then there are geese, which honk, another word for beep, as in beeping one's car horn:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28

When I was in Shanghai in 1989, I couldn't help but notice that everyone there drove with their elbows rapping out a constant tattoo on their bus, truck, and auto horns. It was a city full of sound and fury, especially after the Tien An Men Square incident.

The VP debates are usually full of sound and fury but signify nothing.

And Rory Alsop hits the nail squarely with rhymes with Veep.

I don't know whether the writer thought of all this, but it's possible. It's also one of those folk explanations for a particular behavior: one can always imagine a scenario to explain anything, even if it's wrong.

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