"gook" (rhymes with "book")

[Benjamin Zimmer]

If "gook" as applied to Filipinos or other foreigners derives from
"goo-goo", we'd expect the pronunciation /guk/ (rhymes with "duke"), and
this is indeed what all the dictionaries give.  But other derogatory
senses of "gook" have apparently been pronounced /gUk/ (rhymes with
"book").  Here's a versified example from 1917:

-----
Indiana Evening Gazette (Pa.), March 31, 1917, p. 3/3
There's a moral here for golfing gooks
Who drive into woods and brooks--
'Tis better to toss the texts away
And forget what the golfing experts say,
Like the good old Scot, who learned to play
Ere they thought of golfing books.
-----

(From the context of the verse, a "golfing gook" is a "duffer".)

There's also the 1950s slang term "book gook" for a studious person,
discussed in a post by Doug Wilson about a 1952 article on teen slang:
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0408A&L=ads-l&P=R7313

In a follow-up, I mentioned the use of "book gook" in a short 1952 film
available on the Internet Archive called "Young Man's Fancy":
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0410D&L=ads-l&P=R355

The protagonist, a slang-slinging teenage girl named Judy Adams,
pronounces "book gook" as /bUk gUk/ in this section of the film:

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http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?id=1244
(2:45)
Judy: For Pete's sake, wouldn't you know that goon brother of mine would
bring home something that lives under a rock?
Mrs. Adams: Judy, I do wish you'd speak English like normal human beings.
Besides, I'm sure Mr. Phipps is a very nice young man.
Judy: I know, but just because Bob is a book gook is no reason he has to
bring another one home with him.
-----

The /gUk/ pronunciation perhaps aligns these usages with "gook" as a
variant of "guck" = 'thick messy substance' -- AHD and MWCD give /gUk/ as
the primary pronunciation of this sense of "gook", with /guk/ as a
secondary pronunciation.

Is there any evidence that the xenonym "gook" has also been pronounced
/gUk/?  That might indicate influence from these other senses of "gook".


--Ben Zimmer