By the bye?

Question

One of us (by the bye), had not said it at all. What does by the bye means ?Thank you in advance.

Rover_KE · Accepted Answer

Click here to find the definition of the phrase in several dictionaries and be sure to bookmark the website for future reference.

Anonymous · Answer

'by the bye' is an obsolete English expression. It was replaced with 'by the way', or 'oh, by the way', which is only occasionally used, and only in an interrogatory as: 'Oh, by the way, did you turn in your homework?'

Thomas Tompion · Answer

It means 'by the way', and is, in my view, rather old-fashioned, not to say quaint.

A view supported by the ngrams.

Look at https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=by+the+bye%2Cby+the+by%2Cby+the+way&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cby%20the%20bye%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cby%20the%20by%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cby%20the%20way%3B%2Cc0

I'm surprised at the view expressed by Anonymous that it is only used in questions. It's not, in my view, any more restricted to questions than is 'by the way'.

The first 10 uses I found in an English Literature database were not in interrogatives - I stopped looking for confirmation after that.

Here's a typical example from Poe's story 'The Spectacles': While on the subject of names, by the bye, I may mention a singular coincidence of sound attending the names of some of my immediate predecessors.

By the bye?

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions