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

[Jonathan Lighter]

FWIW, as a child I assumed that Kong really was some kind of "King" ; of the jungle, or the Monsters, or something.  I didn't relate the name to "ping-pong" or fake Chinese until I was an adult - and then only as a passing thought.

  Never cared much more the movie, actually.

  JL

Chris Waigl <cwaigl at FREE.FR> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
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Subject: Re: Origin of "King Kong" (Chinese? Courting frogs?)
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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
. 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.)




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