Query: "book" = leave, run away

[Grant Barrett]

On 8/1/02 07:34, "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:

>> I doubt the influence of "boog, boogie" ....
>
> I wouldn't talk about influence: I believe that "boogie" and "book" in this
> sense are virtually the same word. The evolution is not clear to me,
> however, and I'm not sure what form came first, or from where. I seriously
> doubt any real relation to "book" = "study" or "book passage". I wonder
> whether "bug out" = "depart" is related.

I thought it was fairly clear that "boogie" most likely derives from the
intransitive French verb bouger, meaning "to move, budge, stir" or its
conjugation bougez, which is an imperative form, the formal present tense
third person singular form, and the present tense third person plural form,
or bougé, the masculine past participle form, all three pronounced the same
way: boo-jzhay. A typical anglophone mispronunciation puts you immediately
very close to "boogie." We could also in this context talk about the origin
of "to budge."

Grant Barrett