[Ads-l] Root of Pook?

Dan Goncharoff thegonch at GMAIL.COM
Thu Sep 22 18:58:07 UTC 2016


I seem to recall a "Pookie" from the 1950s musical Pajama Game, used as
part of the spoken lines said in the dark during "Hernando's Hideaway". Not
really preppy.

DanG

On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 2:02 PM, Flourish Klink <flourish.klink at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Query: does this have anything to do with the classic prep nickname
> "Pookie"?
>
> On Wed, Sep 21, 2016 at 10:15 PM Dave Hause <dwhause at cablemo.net> wrote:
>
> > Lobeline, Lobeline
> > Meanest gal
> > That I ever seen,
> > No one else
> > Could be as mean
> > As that pure wicked
> > Lobeline.
> >
> > Dave Hause
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: George Thompson
> > Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2016 8:03 PM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: Root of Pook?
> >
> >       Last Week Mr. Thomas Brunton, his Wife and three or four more of
> his
> > Family, in this City, had like to be poisoned by eating the Root of Pook,
> > for Horse Radish; but by having the immediate Assistance of a Physician,
> > they are now almost all recovered.
> >       N-Y Mercury, March 26, 1764, p. 2, col. 2
> > I don't see this elsewhere, and don't see it in the OED as such, but
> > "pukeweed", below, sounds as if it might be a bad plant to eat by
> mistake.
> >
> > GAT
> > pukeweed  n. *N. Amer.* (now *hist.*) Indian tobacco,  *Lobelia inflata*,
> > an erect, usually branched herb bearing racemes of bluish-violet or white
> > flowers, which yields the alkaloid lobeline and was formerly used as an
> > emetic.
> > 1830    C. S. Rafinesque *Med. Flora* 2.22   *Lobelia inflata.
> > Names..Vulgar.* Indian Tobacco, Wild Tobacco, Emetic Weed, Puke Weed.
> > 1925    *Sci. Monthly* Aug. 207   For lobelia or the puke weed Bartram
> made
> > such remarkable claims that the passage is quoted verbatim.
> > 1994    J. S. Haller *Med. Protestants* 41   Thomson established an
> > alternative system of medical treatment. He depended most heavily on
> > lobelia (his ‘pukeweed’).
> >
> > --
> > George A. Thompson
> > The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
> > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> > Univ. Pr., 1998.
> >
> > But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
> > your lowly tomb. . . .
> >
> > L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", *Poems*.  Boston, 1827, p. 112
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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