Whither the word "yeppers"?
June 25, 2017 8:08 AM   Subscribe

Without thinking about it, I used the word "yeppers" (meaning "yes") in an email to my mom. She'd never heard it before, and I can't think of where I might have picked it up. Where did this word come from, and how long has it been circulating?
posted by heatherlogan to Writing & Language (20 answers total)
 
It's just slang, I use it, don't know where I picked it up. I'm SW Fla. born & raised, redneck beach bum boater........
posted by patnok at 8:15 AM on June 25, 2017


Best answer: I definitely say it, and honestly I am pretty sure I picked it up from "The Office" D: Here's a thread about "yeppers" from 2000, so pre-dates sitcom usage by at least a few years :)
posted by goodbyewaffles at 8:24 AM on June 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


Huh. I say it, but almost ironically. It means "this is my cheerful face. I am saying yes with exaggerated cheerfulness." Interestingly, that linked thread from 2000 associates it with Iowa, where I live, but I'm pretty sure that my use of it pre-dates my ever setting foot in Iowa.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:05 AM on June 25, 2017


I also got it from "The Office," in this scene where Michael is talking to Jan (they're dating) on the phone after Roy's attack on Jim was thwarted by Dwight:

Michael: No, he has been wanting a raise for a couple of months and he's just using this Roy thing as leverage.
Jan: All right, well are you gonna take care of this?
Michael: Yeppers.
Jan: What did I tell you about "yeppers?"
Michael: I don't... remember.
Jan: I told you not to say it. Do you remember that?
Michael: Yaysh...
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 9:12 AM on June 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


Best answer: My EXTREMELY redneck-and-proud co-worker from 20 years ago used it a lot. He was a former fishermen out of Port Saint Lucie, FL. Prolly knew patnok... ;D

Only place I remember hearing it other than that is The Office, as others have already mentioned.
posted by dozo at 9:20 AM on June 25, 2017


Best answer: I've heard it (and just "yepper") since the mid eighties. Assuming "yep" is an alternate form of "yes", I always assumed "yepper" or "yeppers" was just "yessir" built on "yep".
posted by klausman at 9:38 AM on June 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Best answer: It way predates "The Office": I've never watched that show, plus I've been using 'yeppers' for the last 30-40 years. (I'm not a redneck, nor have I lived in either Iowa or Florida.)
posted by easily confused at 10:00 AM on June 25, 2017 [9 favorites]


Best answer: It's slang dating way back, I remember hearing older relatives use it at midwest family reunions in the 80s.
posted by ethical_caligula at 10:11 AM on June 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Best answer: we said yeppers in the 80's in suburban Detroit. not as much as we said rad or totally awesome but we definitely said it.
posted by RichardHenryYarbo at 11:01 AM on June 25, 2017


Response by poster: It's really interesting to learn that yeppers is not a new thing! I was a kid in the '80s in California and I remember well saying rad and totally awesome, and then hella (and its more mild form hecka) in the '90s, but never encountered yeppers. It sounds like it's a regional thing, which later spread due to mass media.
posted by heatherlogan at 11:03 AM on June 25, 2017


Best answer: Yeppers, my sister spent the late 70's in northern Minnnesota, and came back to Texas in the 80s saying it. Mostly with a Fargo accent. (really Barnsville or Dilworth but nobody knows what that means)
posted by a humble nudibranch at 12:14 PM on June 25, 2017


Best answer: My dad has used "yep" and "yepper," but never "yeppers," for as long as I can remember. He and I both grew up in NE Ohio. I'm 46.
posted by jon1270 at 1:46 PM on June 25, 2017


Response by poster: OMG. That should be WHENCE, not whither. *facepalm*
posted by heatherlogan at 2:12 PM on June 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


Best answer: Yuppers! We said it in the 80s in Canada too.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:48 PM on June 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


I was born and have spent most of my life in New Zealand and I say yeppers too. I can only assume I picked it up from a TV show in my youth (not 'The Office' (US) though), because it is not common around here to say it.
posted by BeeJiddy at 3:15 PM on June 25, 2017


Best answer: I first remember hearing Dave Letterman say this on his show in the 80's I think. It stuck in my head because I'm a Hoosier too and had heard yep but never yepper or yeppers before that. I think he was being sarcasticly folksy about something Paul said.
posted by stray thoughts at 5:38 PM on June 25, 2017


Best answer: The earliest use I've been able to find of the affirmative word in print is from an advertisement in the October 14, 1937, issue of the Evening Sun of Hanover, Pennsylvania. There could be older uses but I did not find them. There are older "yeppers," but they are not the same word. They refer to people who say "yep" a lot, as in "yeppers and yeahers," or they refer to an etymologically unrelated word meaning vigor or energy.

The ad is selling suits to students, which makes me suspect they were trying to work in a bit of student slang in the copy.

The ad reads, in part:

"SPIRIT-OF-YOUTH"
STUDENT SUITS
With 1 or 2 Trousters
$13.50 and $16.50
Sizes 16 to 22 years

Boy, oh boy, are these styles up to the minute! Yepper...they're suits with Snap! The Quality is exceptional...the Colors richs... the Choice is wide... wide selection of fabrics, of colors and of styles... all are correct in cut and expertly tailors inside and out!
posted by Mo Nickels at 5:53 PM on June 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


Best answer: Worked with a guy in 1988 who said it nonstop. I remember clearly becauseI found it annoying. So, at least that far back - this was in the Philadelphia area.
posted by Miko at 7:06 PM on June 25, 2017


could this be related to the UK tendency to add "er" to the ends of words? For example, rugby to "rugger", association football to "soccer." I can't think off the top on my head of anything outside the regime of sport where this deformation occurs, but the yep to yeppers transformation seems at least superficially similar...
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 7:08 PM on June 25, 2017


I can't place my first usage but as a data point I grew up in So Cal and was a teenager in the 70s. Yepper rolls off my tongue with the ease of "you betcher ass dad" and "all right a rooney". Why do we do it? Well, why do we call dogs "doggos" and "puppers"? Because we can.
posted by janey47 at 5:59 AM on June 26, 2017


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