"shambo" (was " Charlie")--Why "sham"?

[Jonathan Lighter]

No, a sham attack and a sneak attack are two different things, I'd say.

"Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at UMR.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard"
Subject: Re: "shambo" (was " Charlie")--Why "sham"?
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Still just guessing: How about "sham" (dishonest, phony), with reference to the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor? Btw, Sambo was "little black Sambo." The Japanese, while not black, are not white either, and they tend to be of shorter physical stature than many of their American counterparts.

Gerald Cohen

> ----------
> From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Jonathan Lighter
> Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2004 4:06 PM
> Subject: Re: "shambo" (was " Charlie")
>
> This occurred to me when I first encountered the term, but I seriously doubt it's so. The Japanese (or Chinese, Koreans, or still later, Vietnamese) have never been routinely referred to by terms suggesting the all-too-familiar racial identification of "Sambo." And if they had been, why alter the initial phoneme?
>
> JL
>
> "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard"
> Subject: Re: "shambo" (was " Charlie")
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Just a guess: Seems to be an alteration of "Sambo."
>
> Gerald Cohen
>
>
> > >Something of a mystery word for the Japanese was "shambo." It seems to have been restricted to the First Marine Division and was resurrected in Korea for the Chinese.
> > >Any etymological suggestions?
> > >
> > >JL
> > >
> >
>
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