A German dialect form used as slang by black GI's

[Wilson Gray]

On Aug 3, 2004, at 8:04 AM, David Bowie wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       David Bowie <db.list at PMPKN.NET>
> Subject:      Re: A German dialect form used as slang by black GI's
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> From:    Wilson Gray <hwgray at EARTHLINK.NET>
>
> : When I was first stationed in Heilbronn, a town in the
> : Schwaebisch-dialect region of Germany (a point driven home by the
> fact
> : that the towns of Schwaebisch-Hall and Schwaebisch-Gemuend were only
> a
> : couple of kliks away), I noticed that my fellow black G.I.'s used a
> : slang term that new to me: "COOKamo." From context, it was clear that
> : this meant, "Take a look (at this)," "Look (here)," and was even used
> : as a kind of sentential adverbial: "Look (here), that's not what I
> was
> : trying to say." Later, I began to notice that the local "indigenous
> : personnel" also used this word *very* often in conversations that
> were
> : otherwise totally in German...
>
> <snip>
>
> : To make along story short, a grammar of the Schwaebisch dialect
> showed
> : me that Standard German "Gucke einmal!", literally "Look one time!"
> : (this literal translation may be a little strange in standard
> English,
> : but it's perfectly grammatical in BE), "Take a look!", "Look here!",
> : etc. was, in the Schwaebisch dialect, none other than "Kucke 'mo!"
> : Problem solved.
>
> As someone who lived for a short time (autumn/winter 1990-1991) in
> Heilbronn
> as a civilian, i never heard the anglicized version of this that i
> noticed,
> but i was definitely familiar with the German form, though i knew it as
> "Guck(e) mal!", where "Guck(e)" (the final schwa is optional) is the
> imperative form for 'look', and "mal" is a word that softens the
> command,
> making it polite rather than imperious (or that makes it even more
> imperious, if a certain amount of sarcasm is involved).
>
> I think what you heard as "COOKamo" is more likely to come from "Gucke
> mal!"
> than "Gucke einmal!", since i would expect that the Neckarschwaebisch
> for
> the latter would come out, anglicized, as something more like
> "COOKoymo"
> than "COOKamo".
>
> David Bowie                                         http://pmpkn.net/lx
>     Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
>     house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
>     chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.

I'm not sure that the G.I. result would have been any different. The
Germans were still looked upon as a conquered people, in those days.
Nobody really cared about speaking German correctly, if at all. I knew
a few guys who spoke to Germans only in Yiddish. Russians likewise used
only Russian and English(!) when speaking to Germans, even in official
interactions.  However, with respect to your reanalysis of the German
form underlying "cookamo," I agree with it entirely.  "You are clearly
correct, sir."

When I was there around 1961, four different US Army units were
stationed there at three different Kaserne (I'm guessing; I'm familiar
with only the G.I. version, "kasserns," with voiceless intervocalic
/s/). I can recall the names of two of them: Badnerhof-Kasern , shared
by my unit, a Security Agency company, with a guided-missile company
that there was no room for at the Artillerie-Kasern. The third Kasern,
whose name I've forgotten, was occupied by an armored rifle battalion.
There was once a "strong American presence" in Heilbronn, to say the
least.

-Wilson Gray