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

[Wilson Gray]

What about "gobble-de-gook"?

-Wilson Gray

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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
>Subject:      Re: Gook (???) (1912) -- Goo-goo
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>>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