Reduplication
Years ago when I lived on
the island of Tutuila in American Samoa, I was fascinated by the culture’s take
on many European traditions. One of those was the tradition of the use of
Junior. In Samoa, Junior was applied to boys whose first name mirrored his
family name. The full name of the first Junior I met was Eliapo Eliapo, Jr. I
met a Tasi Tasi, Jr., a Malie Malie Jr., and many others.
In honor of that
translation of one culture’s tradition into another’s, this week’s words all
feature what etymologists call a reduplication, or words that
masquerade as reduplications.
Bonbon showed up in English in 1796 from the French word bonbon
– a reduplication
of bon,
or good. And doesn’t a bonbon
deserve the moniker goodgood?
In 1954 boo-boo
came to English. Its parent word, boob, entered English twenty years
earlier, meaning foolish mistake.
Boo-boo
is a reduplication
of boob.
Pompom entered English in 1748, meaning ornamental round tuft. It was originally
pompon
(1725) & appears to have come from the French word
pompe, meaning pomp. It doesn’t appear to be a true reduplication, but it
sure looks like one. Many arguments exist for why an ornamental round tuft might display pomp, but nobody knows
for sure.
Beriberi came to English in 1725. It defined a paralytic disease prevalent in India. It
came from Sinhalese, in which beri meant weakness, but the degree
of weakness brought on by the disease was greater than your average weakness,
thus beriberi.
The word for the frilly
skirt worn in ballet came to us in 1910 from French. Tutu was originally cucu,
a reduplication
of a part of the body the tutu is intended to cover. A
somewhat refined literal translation of tutu is derriere-derriere.
Another reduplication
is the word pooh-pooh, which showed up in English in 1827, built on the
word pooh,
which (like its reduplication) meant to
dismiss lightly & contemptuously. Pooh was one of many words first put
on paper by William Shakespeare. The bard’s first pooh was uttered by
Ophelia in Hamlet.
Reduplication (or faux reduplication, as in pompom
above) is responsible for many more words. Rack your brains for some
possibilities, & enter them in the comments section.
My mother describes frilly decorations as "frou-frou." I've never been quite sure if that's her word, or if it came from somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteHow about so-so. Does that count? Or only so-so. Ha. I've missed a couple of weeks--out of town, no internet access. Really! I'm happy to see you are still here tantalizing us with our own English language!
ReplyDeleteAhoy Rachel6 & Christine,
ReplyDeleteThanks for coming by once more. I'll put so-so & frou-frou on the list. Actually, it would be intriguing to see where all the various frou-frou-defining terms come from (kitsch, knick-knacks, etc.).
I'm so gratified to know that having beri-beri really does mean your very very sick. I love the word frou-frou. Glad Rachel brought it up.
ReplyDelete