"gook" (rhymes with "book")

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:51 AM -0500 3/17/05, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>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:
>

I've only heard /guk/ for the xenoslur, and I've only heard /gUk/ for
the last syllable of "gobbledygook", and...

>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.
>
... for the mass noun above, the (I assume non-exact) synonym of guck
and gunk (Who's gonna clean up this gook/guck/gunk on the counter?)

larry