same old

[Douglas G. Wilson]

Items from the Web ...

A recent article on the English/Japanese slang of the Occupation and Korean
War times ("Baby-san's Lingo") appears in "Verbatim":

http://www.verbatimmag.com/25_3.pdf

-- including "same-o same-o" in the expected sense (on p. 11).

I still think the "o" probably = "old". Several reduplications are shown in
the article. There is no unexpected gratuitous "o" (unless this is one). [I
would not expect the Japanese direct-object particle "o" to appear here,
and I don't see it anywhere else.] [Note that "furendo" (here "friendo") <
"friend" is expected since the realization of syllable-terminal English
"t"/"d" in Japanese is typically "to"/"do" as opposed to other
syllable-terminal consonants "C" > "Cu" (occasionally "Ci") ("n" > "n").]

On the other hand ...

A US soldier's reminiscence of Japan during the Korean War at

http://www.cornerstonemag.com/features/iss116/frank.htm

includes the passage

<<I had one thought in mind, to find me some drugs. I couldn't speak
Japanese so all the girls I saw, I'd roll up their sleeves to see if they
had tracks like I did. When I found one I said, "You and me, same-o,
same-o, you know?">>

in which "same-o same-o" is used where I might expect "same-same" --
meaning simply "the same". [The article apparently was written in 1982,
however.]

-- Doug Wilson