Rock-paper-scissors redux

[Wilson Gray]

Thank you for the effort, Benjamin. But, saying that Japanese
_roshambo_ is derived from French "Rochambeau" is like saying that
English "dog" is derived from French "dogue." That's probably why
Wikipedia isn't able to supply a reason for it.

Here's wwhat our own Doug had to say, a few years back:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0410b&L=ads-l&P=22655

Here's what a japanese site has to say:

http://www.netlaputa.ne.jp/~tokyo3/e/janken_e.html

Here's more:

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mrockpaper.html

Judging by Google, "roshambo" is a more widely-used alternative name
in English-speaking countries, including ours, than it is in France.
But I didn't find anything that caused me to think that I was going to
be able to discover the word's origin in this lifetime.

-Wilson

On 5/20/07, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Rock-paper-scissors redux
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'm not sure if this is helpful, but I ran into the French name "Count
> Jean Baptiste de Rochambeau" tonight and looked it up. This as well as
> Reaux Sham Beaux are given as alternatives for "rock, scissors, paper"
> at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochambeau. At
> http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/RPG_Lexica:PQR, the name "roshambo" is
> said to be derived from this count, though the reason is unknown.
>
> If you go to the "rock, scissors, paper" entry at Wikipedia and click
> the French version of the article,
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-feuille-ciseaux comes up, not
> Rochambeau. Additionally, the disambiguation page for Rochambeau
> (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochambeau) does not give
> pierre-feuille-ciseaux, so I think the NYT article may be mistaken.
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> a cyberbreath for language life
> livinglanguages.wordpress.com
>
> Wilson Gray wrote:
> > According to today's NYT A14:5,
> >
> > "... '[R]oshambo' [is] the French name for the game."
> >
> > Who knew? I wonder what game "kurambo" is the French name for.
> >
>
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