Gook (???) (1912) -- Goo-goo

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>Of course its existence could have influenced the racial sense of "gook"
>(ultimately from "googoo").  Anything on "goog," an intermediate spelling?

I can't find any "goog". I do find "googie" as an alternative (diminutive,
I guess) for "goo-goo" = "Filipino" (1899).

I read somewhere a speculation that this "goo-goo" might be derived from
"gugu" meaning a local plant used like shampoo in the Philippines. I can't
recall the datails. An on-line dictionary does show "gugu" = "shampoo" in
Kapampangan, = "gugo" in Tagalog.

Note also that in 1899 while the word "goo-goo" was being applied to
Filipinos the word "goo-goo" was quite conventional in the US referring to
political reformists (from "Good Government League"or some such thing);
this home-grown "goo-goo" was used disparagingly, I think by Teddy
Roosevelt inter alia, and it was used before the Spanish-American War.
Might this be the origin? Were the Filipino insurgents likened to fanatical
reformists in the US maybe? It's hard to tell in the wartime news items
whether "goo-goo" refers to all Filipinos or specifically to the insurgents.

On a lighter note, Safire's column in *1995* [entitled "Goo-goo Eyes"]
stated (in response to somebody who recalled "goo-goo" = "Filipino") that
the word for Filipinos is "gook", which has nothing whatever to do with
"goo-goo".

-- Doug Wilson