say again vs say what

say again

phrase
  • "What did you say?" or "Repeat what you have said." A polite formula used when one has not heard or understood what has been said. 

  • To repeat part of or entire message transmitted over the radio, used instead of "repeat" which is an artillery procedure word. 

say what

phrase
  • What did you say?; Huh?; expresses incredulity. 

How often have the words say again and say what occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )