Talk:hell

from old nordic religion?

Doesn´n the english word hell come from the old nordic religion, with Odin as the headgod, and the "goddess" hel who were go over the underworld? Because that is what i remenber i have heart in language-lesson.

It was possibly influenced by Old Norse Hel (Loki’s daughter, from Proto-Germanic *khalija, one who conceals something)), but this is not certain. —Stephen 04:55, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

incomplete or somewhere else?

i can's see the idiom "a hell of a"?" 81.62.168.161 05:32, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I added that, copying from helluva.—Soap— 01:13, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

RFV discussion: September 2022–February 2023

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hell

Rfv-sense "(impolite, sometimes considered vulgar) Used to emphasize." AFAICT, this usage is restricted to the set phrases hell no and hell yeah and variants thereof, and is not productive generally. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 17:03, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps a definition with similar wording (or at least a label, such as often in combination) is warranted that includes the various multiword terms that include hell. DCDuring (talk) 18:32, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

The Macquarie Dictionary (mirrored here) has a similar sense at sense 8. Is this the same as the challenged sense? This, that and the other (talk) 04:47, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

It looks to be, yes; taking this into account, it seems to me that that sort of productive use is specific to certain dialects, and that that sense of hell is still nonproductive and restricted to the aforementioned set phrases in the remaining dialects (which use hella, rather than hell, in this productive-emphatic-interjection sense; e.g., hella good, hella cold, etc.). I'm gonna go whale on the entry to that effect; BRB. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 00:59, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

I've amended the entry in question; any thoughts? Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 01:06, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Assuming that we can find cites to support the Aussie sense then this looks good. I can’t even find any cites when typing ‘hell bonzer|ripper mate|cobber’ into GB, so it may be hard to find. I’ve found a ‘hell sexy’ on Twitter but don’t know if the user is Aussie or not[1]. Other non-durable antipodean uses of ‘hell good’ are here[2] and here[3] --Overlordnat1 (talk) 01:21, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

@Whoop whoop pull up I don't think the Australian use is necessarily an interjection, probably just an ordinary adverb. This, that and the other (talk) 04:41, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Will take care of that. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 05:30, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

@This, that and the other, Overlordnat1 Moved the adverb part of the sense to the adverb section, which leaves the interjection sense pretty much where we were at the beginning. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 05:40, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

It looks good now. I'd suggest that we keep the disputed interjection sense but just label it as being unproductive and limited to certain set phrases like hell yeah, hell yes and hell no. We should also keep these set phrases rahter than consider them to be SOP though. I'm sure I've come across similar treatments for fossilised senses of words on this project before but I can't immediately think of any examples. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:18, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

RFV Passed, consensus is apparently to keep. Ioaxxere (talk) 22:41, 9 February 2023 (UTC)