It's a word, duh. . .Doh!The word "duh" is a monomorphemic word, that is, it consists of one morpheme, one sound-meaning unit. Other syllables can be prefixed to the word, such as:
Evidence is mixed as to whether these prefixes change the meaning. Some report that the prefix intensifies the meaning. For those speakers, the "o" and "no" are inflectional affixes. Like the suffixes "-er" and "-est," the "o" and "no" are bound morphemes adding the meaning of "more" or "most" to the root morpheme, "stupid" or "foolish." For most speakers, however, the "oh" and "no" funtion as separate words. This is similar to when a person says, "Well, duh." The "oh" or "no" or "well" are merely words that seem to be added for the rhythm of the sentence rather than to refine meaning. "Duh" is generally used in the second person, that is, one says "duh" addressing another person directly. In some cases it is also used in the third person as a comment on observed behavior. However, it is never used in the first person to speak of one's personal stupidity. Instead, the word "Doh!" is used for the first person. This means that "Doh!" and "duh" stand in the same relation as "I am" and "you are" and "he is" so that:
Back FormationPerhaps this speaks to the coinage of "doh!" In their textbook on linguistics Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman explain, "A new word may enter the language because of an incorrect morphological analysis." They call this "back-formation" and describe several examples in English. For example, "pea" was derived from the singular word "pease" by speakers who thought "pease" was plural. The authors go on to explain that "Some word coinage, similar to the kind of wrong morphemic analysis that produces back-formations, is deliberate." They describe a person who called a topless bathing suit a "monokini" to contrast with a "bikini."1 In a similar way, Homer Simpson has coined "Doh!" as a first-person form of "duh." 1. Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman, An Introduction to Language (sixth edition), p. 87.
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