"gook" (rhymes with "book")

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS shows "mook" going back to 1930.

JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: "gook" (rhymes with "book")
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At 6:19 PM -0800 3/18/05, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Who says "mook" > "Mookie" ?

I'm claiming "Mook" < "Mookie", not vice versa, but to address the question--
A whole bunch of Mets fans, especially immediately after his (Mookie
Wilson's) role in the 1986 Series win (especially hitting that ground
ball that rolled through Buckner's legs). A basketball player named
Mookie Blaylock, formerly from the U. of Oklahoma and various NBA
teams, would also be called "Mook" on occasion, if memory serves.

>Laurence Horn wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Laurence Horn
>Subject: Re: "gook" (rhymes with "book")
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>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
>
>
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