Origin of "King Kong" (Chinese? Courting frogs?)

[Wilson Gray]

On 1/9/06, Chris Waigl <cwaigl at free.fr> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Chris Waigl <cwaigl at FREE.FR>
> Organization: sadly lacking
> Subject:      Re: Origin of "King Kong" (Chinese? Courting frogs?)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Mon, 9 Jan 2006 15:00:50 -0500, Wilson Gray typed:
>
> > Supposedly, in Scandinavia, the movie has the title, "Kong King." In
> > contradistinction to English, in those countries, it's "kong" that
> > means "king," whereas "king" is just a noise to which any meaning
> > can be assigned.
>
> The Swedish Wikipedia gives the title as "King Kong", though
> <http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kong>. On the page for the 1933
> film, "Originaltitel: King Kong" is indicated in addition, so the
> first "King Kong" refers to what the movie is known as in Sweden.
>
> I saw the 1933 film as a child -- it belonged, to me, firmly into the
> "horror movie" category, of which I wasn't fond. If I had any
> interpretation of the name, it would would have been that it was some
> sort of fake Chinese, like ching-chong, ping-pong etc. That was at a
> time when I was quite aware of the meaning of the English word "king".
>
> Chris Waigl
> (yes, I know about onomatopoeia. now.)
>


I also saw the movie when I was a child, ca.1944. I likewise
considered it to be a horror movie. But I loved such films, as long as
I was accompanied by an adult or a bunch of my buddies. I've never
understood how anyone could say that scary movies cause nightmares in
children.

I never gave a thought to a possible meaning for the title. I knew
that an animal could be called "King" ("On, King! On, you huskies!" as
Sgt. Preston of the Royal Mounties was wont to shout). BTW, didn't the
natives refer to the Great  Ape as merely "Kong"? If that's true, do
you know how it was, within the movie, that Kong came to be given the
honorific of "king"? Was it just a showbiz thing, given to Kong as he
was about to be taken on the road?

As for the Scandinavia claim, I most likely got it from _Reader's
Digest_, of which I was once an avid reader, prior to reaching
puberty. ;-) Unfortunately, I'm now once again a reader of RD. :-)
But, of course, I no longer believe everything that I read in it.

-Wilson

-Wilson