"gook" (rhymes with "book")

[Jonathan Lighter]

"Guck" is recorded much later than syn. "gook" and "gunk."  This sort of  {gook}  is always, so far as I know, / gUk /.  I assume "guck" is / g^k /."

JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: "gook" (rhymes with "book")
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At 11:51 AM -0500 3/17/05, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>If "gook" as applied to Filipinos or other foreigners derives from
>"goo-goo", we'd expect the pronunciation /guk/ (rhymes with "duke"), and
>this is indeed what all the dictionaries give. But other derogatory
>senses of "gook" have apparently been pronounced /gUk/ (rhymes with
>"book"). Here's a versified example from 1917:
>

I've only heard /guk/ for the xenoslur, and I've only heard /gUk/ for
the last syllable of "gobbledygook", and...

>The /gUk/ pronunciation perhaps aligns these usages with "gook" as a
>variant of "guck" = 'thick messy substance' -- AHD and MWCD give /gUk/ as
>the primary pronunciation of this sense of "gook", with /guk/ as a
>secondary pronunciation.
>
... for the mass noun above, the (I assume non-exact) synonym of guck
and gunk (Who's gonna clean up this gook/guck/gunk on the counter?)

larry


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