Buckaroo: supposed African origin

[Michael Cassidy]

SK wrote:

Something from another list that reminded me of many posts on this list:

> Could this have been manufactured from nothing?

I am betting my bottom dollar, not to be confused with my heady and
intoxicating scents,
that the origin of "kibosh" is not Yiddish.   it's a false pretender that
might "look" Yiddish but only to someone who doesn't know Yiddish.   I may
end up eating my hat but there is no Germanic, Hebrew or Slavic element (the
main ingredients of Yiddish) in the word that I can detect.

My guess as to its origin is that a man was eating kibble [origin unknown]
(1790) when his wife tripped while carrying a steaming tureen of mush to the
table and spilled the mush into the kibble.   The impressionable child
babbling under the table who witnessed this primal scene dredged it up 46
years later in Bedlam where he had been confined at an early age for
obsessively impersonating an Irishman putting a cap on his head filled with
hot kibble and mush until one day in 1836 a hot-headed little fellow named
Mr. O'Malley came to the man in a vision and sang, "Whack fol the da/Whelt
the salt and pepper shaker/ rattle and roll/Lots of kibble and mush at
Finnegan's Wake," at which point the man had an epiphany and exclaiming
"'From now on I'm putting the kibosh on that green little fellow instead of
a cap."

> Here's another thought from www.etymonline.com
>
> kibosh - 1836, kye-bosk, in slang phrase put the
> kibosh on, of unknown origin, despite intense
> speculation. Looks Yiddish, but seems too early to be;
> one candidate is Ir. cie bais "cap of death," the
> black cap a judge would don when pronouncing a death
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --- Stanley Chin wrote:
> > hmm.
> >
> > (1) Many words in English have obscure origins,
> > particularly those which may be
> > said to have risen in the world from lowly origins
> > in argot, cant or slang.
> > None is more mysterious than kibosh . . .
> > http://www.quinion.com/words/articles/kibosh.htm)
> >
> > (2) pronounced either KEI-BAHSH, KEI-BAWSH, or
> > kuh-BAHSH, is slang in the idiom
> > put the kibosh on, meaning "put a stop to,"
> > "squelch," as in Dad put the kibosh
> > on my plan to stay for the weekend. Kibosh has been
> > said to be of Irish or of
> > Yiddish origin, but the etymology is really not
> > known. (Columbia Guide to
> > Standard American English)
> >
> > (3) 1836 DICKENS Sk. Boz, Seven Dials, 'Hoo-roar',
> > ejaculates a pot-boy in a
> > parenthesis, 'put the kye-bosk [sic] on her, Mary'.
> > 1846 Swell's Night Guide
> > 124 Kybosh on, to put the, to turn the tables on any
> > person, to put out of
> > countenance. 1856 Punch XXXI. 139 (To put the cibosh
> > upon). 1891 C. ROBERTS
> > Adrift in America 9 It was attending one of these
> > affairs which finally put the
> > 'kibosh' on me. 1896 H. G. WELLS Wheels of Chance
> > xli, 'I put the kybosh on his
> > little game,' he remarks. 1924 Chambers's Jrnl. May
> > 296/2 Standofer's fairly
> > put the kybosh on us this time. 1952 J. CLEARY
> > Sundowners iii. 122 Well, that
> > puts the kybosh on it. 1956 H. G. DE LISSER Cup &
> > Lip xxii. 246 Good for you...
> > You have put the kybosh on them. 1971 Times Lit.
> > Suppl. 7 May 531/2 Not only
> > did the First World War liquidate the Edwardian
> > douceur de vivre. It also put
> > the kybosh on the rationalist's faith in progressive
> > social evolution. 1975
> > Sunday Post (Glasgow) 10 Aug. 7/3 She'd been looking
> > forward to some salmon
> > fishing, but the heatwave's put the kybosh on that".
> > (Oxford English
> > Dictionary)