Lo/lÅ/exclamation
archaic
used to draw attention to an interesting or amazing event.“and lo, the writer realized it was not actually the same word as ‘low’!”
I can understand it when it’s some random person who’s never seen it in print and assumes it’s like “Low, low prices,” but for the love of Christ, I just read it on a news web site. “Low and behold.” I’m not even making that up.
EDIT:
They’re fossil words! The ones so many people fuck up are almost exclusively fossil words! I’m copypasting the text in case the link goes away…
35 Fossil Words
Some of the most intriguing words in the English language are what linguists call fossil words, so named because they are artifacts from another era and survive only in isolated usage. Here is a list of some of our language’s fossil words with definitions and the idiomatic phrases in which they appear:
1. Ado: bother over unimportant details (“without further ado†or, more rarely, “much ado about nothingâ€)
2. Amok (or amuck): in an uncontrolled manner (“run amokâ€)
3. Bandy: hit, pass, or toss around, or discuss lightly or employ off-handedly (“bandy aboutâ€); bowed (“bandy-leggedâ€)
4. Bated: restrained or deducted (“wait with bated breathâ€)
5. Batten: lumber for flooring or for sealing or strengthening a joint or a flexible object such as a sail (“board and battenâ€); to provide or fasten with battens, or to fasten (“batten down the hatchesâ€)
6. Beck: summons (“at (one’s) beck and callâ€)
7. Bygones: what has passed or is in the past (“let bygones be bygonesâ€)
8. Craw: stomach or crop (“sticks in (one’s) crawâ€)
9. Deserts: excellence or worth, or what is deserved or merited (“just desertsâ€)
10. Dint: force or power (“by (sheer) dint ofâ€)
11. Dudgeon: indignation (“high dudgeonâ€)
12. Eke: accomplish or get with difficulty (“eke outâ€)
13. Fettle: state of health or fitness (“in fine fettleâ€)
14. Fro: away or back (“to and froâ€)
15. Hale: sound or very healthy (“hale and heartyâ€)
16. Hither: near or adjacent, or to this place (“hither and yonâ€)
17. Immemorial: before memory or tradition (“time immemorialâ€)
18. Jetsam: what is cast overboard from a ship (“flotsam and jetsamâ€) — distinguished from flotsam, a word denoting what floats from the wreckage of a ship (that term is used elsewhere than in the phrase “flotsam and jetsam†and so is not listed separately here)
19. Ken: range of knowledge, perception, or understanding, or view or range of vision (“beyond (one’s) kenâ€)
20. Kith: friends, neighbors, or relatives (“kith and kinâ€)
21. Loggerhead: blockhead (“at loggerheads,†meaning blocked, or stalled, by stubbornness); also, a type of turtle
22. Mettle: quality, or vigor or strength of, temperament (“test (one’s) mettleâ€)
23. Neap: a weak tide (“neap tideâ€)
24. Offing: the near future (“in the offingâ€); also, the deep ocean as seen from the shore
25. Petard: a container of explosives for breaching or breaking a barrier (“hoist by (one’s) petardâ€)
26. Shebang: everything that is pertinent (“the whole shebangâ€)
27. Shrift: confession (“short shrift,†with the idea that a condemned person is given little time to confess sins)
28. Sleight: stratagem, dexterity (“sleight of handâ€)
29. Thither: more remote, or to that place (“hither and thitherâ€)
30. Turpitude: depravity (“moral turpitudeâ€)
31. Ulterior: beyond what is openly expressed (“ulterior motiveâ€); also, farther, or more distant, or what is on the farther side
32. Vim: robustness (“vim and vigorâ€)
33. Wreak: bring about or cause (“wreak havocâ€)
34. Wrought: manufactured, ornamented, or shaped, or excited (“wrought ironâ€)
35. Yore: the far past (“days of yoreâ€)