Ejaculation (grammar)

In grammar, an ejaculation is an utterance that expresses a feeling outside of the normal language structure. Often but not always it is an exclamation, and most often consists of a single word, either an interjection or a profanity or both.

Examples:


 * In English:
 * The shout Hey!.
 * The huh in That man? Huh! He's history!
 * "Glory to God!" or "Praise the Lord!" In this context, this is known as a religious ejaculation.


 * In spoken French:
 * The exclamation Bien!.

The term is now considered archaic and "to ejaculate" is associated almost exclusively with the sexual meaning, but it was in common usage in the grammatical sense up to the latter part of the 19th Century and early part of the 20th. It can be found in popular culture such as the Biggles books and libretti by W. S. Gilbert.