"gook" (rhymes with "book")

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 23:40:56 -0500, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:

>>I've never seen "guke"; have you checked ProQuest ?  (One thing
>>militating against this spelling is that it could represent the sound
>>in "cuke" cucumber.)
>
>I haven't found "guke".

Interestingly, though, "kook" (discussed elsethread) has the variant
"kuke", attested in HDAS from 1956, earlier than the "kook" spelling
(though both are preceded by "cuck", short for "cuckoo").

>>"Book / gUk /" may simply represent a minority pronun. or a purely
>>factitious term. The phr. itself is attested independently only once,
>>right ?
>
>We've seen two examples on this list as Ben Zimmer recently recalled:
>only one was in audio so that the pronunciation is sure, but I think a
>rhyme is likely for the printed one.

Here are two cites in addition to the two from 1952 already given:

-----
Washington Post, Mar 26, 1953, p. 40/3
Book gook: Studious person.
-----
Los Angeles Times, Jul 29, 1955, p. II5/6
Our panel of teen-age experts today consists of two coolies (girls), two
frantic cats (boys) and one book gook (formerly a square but now known as
a cube).
-----

>If it is asserted that the modern ratio is, say, 10:1 in favor of /guk/,
>then there is no reason AFAIK a priori to assume a change in the ratio
>(although also no reason to exclude the possibility). If it is asserted
>that the current ratio is, say, 100:1 (and I wouldn't find this
>unbelievable) then the fact that both pronunciations appear in MW suggests
>to me (doesn't prove though) that the ratio may have been different 50
>years ago.
>
>Why would it have changed? Well, IF it changed, and IF there is an
>identifiable reason, I can think of two possibilities offhand: (1) "gook"
>being likened to "spook" as an ethnic epithet, ca. 1945; (2) Korean
>"mi-guk" being perceived as /miguk/ rather than /migUk/ and taken as a
>folk-etymon, ca. 1950.

Should we throw "kook" in the mix?  It's suggestive that "gook" apparently
derives from "goo-goo" and "kook" from "cuckoo"/"koo-koo".

Also, I found a Washington Post letter to the editor from 1950 deriving
"gook" from "goo-goo", but in the "goo-goo eyes" sense:

-----
Washington Post, Sep 14, 1950, p. 10
"Gook" is derived from "goo goo" eyes, a derogatory term for Asiatics. The
term no doubt isn't helping us "win friends and influence people." This is
especially true of the South Koreans. ...
Joseph Regal. Boston, Mass.
[Editor's Note: Yet the South Koreans seem to have adopted the word and
are applying it to the North Koreans!]
-----

The editor's note could be based on yet another misunderstanding of
Korean: "miguk" = 'American person', "hanguk" = 'Korean person'.


--Ben Zimmer