“Boy, Hidy!” (or “Boy, Howdy!”)

“Boy, hidy!” (or “Boy, howdy!”) is now regarded as usually a Texas expression. “Boy, howdy!” was popular in 1918, during World War I. The origin or the phrase is unknown. “Boy, hidy!” is a combination of “boy!” and “howdy!” and means something like “wow!” or “gosh yes!” or “gee whiz!”
 
 
Urban Dictionary
boy howdy
General expression/interjection, similar in usage to “wow,” “oh, man,” or “yep”.
“Did the colonoscopy hurt at all?”—“Boy howdy!”
by Swid Sep 9, 2002
   
boy howdy
Southern slang. An interjection. Often used as an expression of surprise for large quantities of something, or severity of something. See yessum.
“Boy howdy! Them pumpkins sure are big! How’re we gonna carry ‘em all, Ms. McGregor?”
by Fugerko.? Dec 23, 2003
 
Never ask a man if he is from Texas
Boy Hidy — An affirmation.
Jim: “This little skit sure stinks.”
Terry: “Boy hidy.”
   
Favourite Word
07-08-2006, 04:54 AM
“Boy Hidy” I think I picked that up when I use to live in Texas. People look at me really strange. 
     
Amazon Seller Community
U R A Texan if
Posted: Nov 1, 2005 7:07 PM
(...)
And speaking of gravy, the local Chicken Express advertises they have real Dublin Dr. Pepper.  You’re a Texan if you know that means it’s made in Dublin, Texas with real pure cane sugar, and boy hidy, that is so good it will make a rabbit slap a bear!
   
ReadLarryPowell.com
It is December 27, 2005, and, as the year draws to a close, boy, is it dry.
 
Or, should that be “boy, hidy”? Sometimes one loses the grip on one’s native slang.
 
Google Books
Country Music: the encyclopedia
by Irwin and Grelun Landon
New York: St. Martin’s Press
1969, 1982, 1984, 1997 copyrights
Pg. 42:
For most of its development period, the band (Boy Howdy—ed.) had the name that eventually graced its recording successes. Larry Park commented, “To us our name’s like a celebration of country music. Boy Howdy—in the old Western movies you’d see somebody riding off on a horse and they’d say, ‘Boy, howdy, did you see that guy shoot that gun?’ That kind of thing. It’s a very western expression.”
 
Google Books
Academy All the Way
by Grover Lewis
New York: Simon and Schuster
1974
Pg. 136:
“Boy hidy, that guy’s weird, you know it?”
Pg. 184:
Boy hidy, lemme tell you, I’m a hunnerd percent behind him on that.
   
Google Books
Warning: Writer at Work
The Best Collectibles of Larry L. King
by Larry L. King
Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press
1985
Pg. 195:
“Boy Hidy, if that chocolate-coated sumbitch don’t stay in his place...”
     
13 May 1902, Uhrichsville (OH) News-Democrat,” “HOWDY” (poem), pg. 6, col. 1: 
Man that sez it’s good enuff—
“Ol’ boy, howdy!”
(...)
—Charles W. Stevenson, in Lippincott’s Magazine.
 
27 July 1918, Bridgeport (CT) Telegram, pg. 5 ad (for wash suits):
Boy, Howdy!
   
5 August 1918, Lake County Times (Hammond, IN), “Boy Scouts Have Whale of a Time at Camp Near Lowell” by Lawrence Harris, pg. 1, col. 2:
Boy Howdy! It is some camp.
 
American Memory
18 October 1918, Stars and Stripes, pg. 7 ad:
“Boy howdy!”—what a razor!
(..)
American Safety Razor Co.
   
16 January 1921, Galveston (TX) Daily News, “The Mark of Zorro” ad, pg. 2, col. 2:
Boy, Howdy! If you want to see something snappy, exciting, romantic, full of tense action, bubbling over with romance, chivalry and glamour, with thrills running neck and neck even fore the terrific climax—you want to see this one.
 
17 September 1921, Oakland (CA) Tribune, “Chips Off the Old Block” by Robert Quillen, pg. 10, col. 1:
Another evil effect of the war is that expression, “Boy, howdy,”