Yale's "Boola-Boola" (30 October 1900)

[Fred Shapiro]

On Sun, 13 Jul 2003 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

> BOOLA-BOOLA
>
>    I've got this crazy song in my head now and can't get it out!  Oh, I hate
> Yale!
>    This has puzzled etymologists and food mavens for a century, so here goes.

Hmm...  Here we have Barry promulgating information about the origins of
"Boola Boola" without any acknowledgment that credit should be given to
two African-Americans (not stablehands) as the originators, and neglecting
my own findings, more widely disseminated than most of the Big Apple/Windy
City/hot dog/etc. discoveries.  If I were Barry, I would scream "shoot me
now!"

But I'm not Barry, so let me calmly explain.  "Boola Boola" is clearly an
adaptation of an 1898 song by African-American entertainers Bob Cole and
Billy Johnson entitled "La Hoola Boola."  The melody is virtually
identical to the earlier song.  When the Yale Boola song was published in
1901, it had a notice "Adapted by permission of Howley, Haviland &
Dresser."  Howley, Haviland & Dresser was the successor publisher of "La
Hoola Boola."

Since Hirsch clearly took the word "boola" from the earlier song, I would
conjecture that it originated because Cole and Johnson wanted a word that
rhymed with "boola" and it has no other meaning beyond that.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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