Ha ha! What ditch? A landscaper’s trick.
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Strolling around the delightful gardens at Standen House, Sussex, The Ranger saw this splendid view across onto the grazing pastures beyond.
You can see a picture of it from another angle in the summer with a flowery meadow if you page through the National Trust’s image gallery here. Getting a bit closer, he realised that this was a great example of the classic eighteenth-century landscaper’s trick: the ha-ha (although this one probably dates from the early twentieth century). This is what was actually at the edge of that lawn:
The house and neatly maintained gardens are to the left, the grazing animals are to the right. The wall keeps the animals off the lawns, but from the house there’s no sign of it. Clever, huh? Look more closely and see if you can spot it this time:
You’d hardly know it was there. As well as being a very clever and simple trick, the ha-ha has the distinction of an unusual and entertaining name. The origins are not entirely clear, but – referring to the Oxford dictionary – seem likely to have originated from a seventeenth century French term meaning ‘an obstacle interrupting one’s way sharply and disagreeably, a ditch behind an opening in a wall at the bottom of an alley or walk’; according to French etymologists, from ha! the exclamation of surprise. One can’t help but wonder, as the author of Naked Translations Blog does:
What I’d like to know is why it was named after a French exclamation? Is it just that the French, being more expansive, expressed their surprise when encountering this odd construction while cool British people kept their reserve and didn’t react? The other point I’d like to make is that not many French people I know would say Ha ha! when surprised… Ah! maybe, or Oh!, but not Ha ha! Very odd indeed.
I expect the cool British knew it was there but didn’t tell their French friends in the hope of some jolly fun!
Of course the ha ha was also the inspiration behind Bloody Stupid Johnson’s ho ho in Terry Pratchets discworld novels.
You’d have thought it would be called an uh-oh.
The inimitable Michael Quinion is interesting as ever on the subject.