Rock-paper-scissors redux

[Benjamin Barrett]

I'm saying that indeed "rochambeau" is *English* not French like the NYT
article claims. I don't think it's Japanese, either.

One possibility that occurred to me after writing last night was that
"rochambeau" could come as a rhyme derivation from "jan-ken-po".
Rochambeau was a famous character in the War for Independence, so I
could see American children changing the name from "jan-ken-po".

HTH BB

Wilson Gray wrote:
> 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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