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

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>As for "Shambo", here is an unlikely possibility.  The science
>fiction/fantasy writer C. L. Moore (1911-1987) wrote a story entitled
>"Shambleau" which
>appeared in _Weird Tales_ in 1933.  There may have been a series of Shambleau
>stories; as Moore published a collection of her stories entitled
>_Shambleau and
>Others_.

There was not AFAIK a seires of "Shambleau" stories, but "Shambleau" was
one of a series of space-opera stories featuring Northwest Smith (sort of a
Han Solo type, I guess). The shambleau was a sort of sexy ET vampire with
some Medusa-like features IIRC; it could have been a model for a wartime
ethnic epithet however if some salient characteristics were abstracted,
viz.: "it looks pretty much human but in fact it is entirely alien and
irredeemably evil".

The story had some popularity and it has some durability. I read it in the
1960's, and again around 1980. It's apparently available right now
(abridged) as a downloadable audiobook!

No more unlikely than the other candidates so far, IMHO.

-- Doug Wilson