"gook" (rhymes with "book")

[Wilson Gray]

>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: "gook" (rhymes with "book")
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>At 7:48 PM -0500 3/18/05, sagehen wrote:
>>Leaving aside "gook" and all the other /-oo-/ words -- like roof & root --
>>that can go either way, I find that /k/ seems to be the most U-inspiring
>>letter of the alphabet. I can come up off the top of my head with about 40
>>/-oo-/ words  that sound the vowel as in "food." Only one of them ("spook")
>>has a /k/.
>
>How about "kook"?  Maybe that gets an /u/ because it derives (by
>clipping) from "kookie".  "Mook" (short for "Mookie", proper name) is
>certainly so analyzable.
>
>Larry

"Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb."

-Wilson