New retroacroetymythostupidnym

[Douglas G. Wilson]

> >I think this "pogue" is likely the origin of "pogy bait" in naval slang.
>
>Yabbut as someone on the soc.history.medieval thread pointed out, "pog(e)y
>bait" dates back to 1918 (see OED). So if "pogue" is the origin of "pogey
>bait", why don't we have exx. of "pogue" in military contexts until WWII?

A good question. I expressed my opinion wrongly. I speculate that the
"pogy" in "pogy bait" is likely more-or-less the same word as "pogue". It
is entirely plausible that the two-syllable "pogy" is the ancestral form of
"pogue" (I think this is what the Chapman dictionary postulates); or maybe
there was once "pogo" or something else. No doubt the next volume of HDAS
will have further information!

>Then again, if there really is a Tagalog derivation, then an origin during
>the Span-Am War would make sense. Perhaps it's lost in the mists of time
>like "googoo/gook".

"Gugu" may not be insoluble. I've seen two speculations, which I can't
recall in detail at this moment: one derives it from a shampoo analogue
used by Filipinos, another from a word meaning "rebel". I note that there
are a large number of Philippine languages, of which I believe Tagalog
is/was not even the largest one (in number of native speakers).

-- Doug Wilson