[Ads-l] Made up words

[Peter Reitan]

Kazoo appears to be a made up word based on the earlier word, bazoo.

And bazooka appears to be a made up word based on bazoo - and perhaps influenced by kazoo?


Barry Popik has previously posted a couple examples of kazoo from 1884.

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2002-November/027189.html

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2005-May/049614.html


A man named Warren Frost, of Worcester, Massachusetts, received a patent for a "Toy or Musical Instrument" on January 9, 1883, based on an application filed August 28, 1882. US Patent No. 270,543.  The text of the patent notes, "This instrument or toy, to which I propose to give the name "kazoo," may be made in many forms . . . ."


Advertisements and notices of the "kazoo" first seem to appear in mid-1884.  An early advertisement suggests that they were made by the U. S. Manufacturing Co., Hartford, Connecticut. New York Clipper, September 6, 1884, page 16.


Before the kazoo was invented and the name coined, the expression " blowing (or tooting, or shooting off) one's bazoo" was used to describe bragging.  "Bazoo" was also used to describe playing a wind instrument, toy instrument, or any instrument played loudly or annoyingly.  Kazoo appears to be coined to play off the earlier meaning of bazoo.


The word "bazoo" was likely an influence on the coining of the name, "bazooka", for the hand-made instrument.  Could the first syllable of kazoo also have influenced the last syllable of "bazooka"?

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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of MULLINS, WILLIAM D (Bill) CIV USARMY RDECOM AMRDEC (US) <william.d.mullins18.civ at MAIL.MIL>
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Subject: Re: Made up words

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Subject:      Re: Made up words
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