yahoo

Wed Apr 2 21:18:34 UTC 2008

Oops.  M-w.com does have a second meaning of "yahoo" that you miss if you don't check the entry box.  The entered word selected could have another pop in there more than once.  That would be another lemma, a di-lemma.  Anyway slide down to the second yahoo, and it's an interjection pronounced yah-HOO.  I would think that use would be primary and the default selection.

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at authorhouse.com.

> Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 20:52:39 +0000
> From: truespel at HOTMAIL.COM
> Subject: Re: yahoo
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
> Subject: Re: yahoo
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'd call labelling a person a "yahoo" as a rarity having not heard it done in my big bunch of years. Her ego-centric approach (which is what she calls having an opinion) is that it's used that way in her family so it's not rare.
>
> The basic issues were.
> 1. m-w.com's majority pronunciation is YAY-hoo (yay as in hay), but I'd think it is YAH-hoo or yah-HOO.
> 2. m-w.com doesn't recognize yahoo as an interjection, which is obvious to me as the majority use, as yahoo.com would after the interjection not the noun (stupid person).
> 3. m-w.com defines a "yahoo" as a "boorish (rude), crass (undignified), OR stupid person." I maintain they must mean AND not OR as one could be smart and boorish and crass as well. Otherwise a boorish person is a yahoo, a crass person is a yahoo, and a stupid person is one two.
>
> But I have no feeling for the term, having not encountered calling a person a yahoo. She might be an expert in name calling, so it seems.
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at authorhouse.com.
>
>
>
>
>> Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 12:20:43 -0500
>> From: slafaive at GMAIL.COM
>> Subject: Re: yahoo
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Scot LaFaive
>> Subject: Re: yahoo
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>> So when I report my experience it's ego-centric, but when you report yours it's not?
>>
>> I think she was probably referring to this statement that you had
>> made: "I've never heard anyone called a "yahoo". It's rare." It
>> sounds as if you are calling this sense rare based on you not hearing
>> it used that way much, while in reality that sense might not be rare
>> at all to the majority, just rare to you.
>>
>> Scot
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 11:59 AM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>>> Subject: Re: yahoo
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> So when I report my experience it's ego-centric, but when you report yours it's not? Who has the flawed thinking here? Watch out everyone, Amy West thinks that anyone who reports their own experience is being ego-centric - except her that is.
>>>
>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at authorhouse.com.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 09:31:39 -0400
>>>> From: medievalist at W-STS.COM
>>>> Subject: Re: yahoo
>>>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>>>
>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>> Poster: Amy West
>>>> Subject: Re: yahoo
>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> The yay-hoo pron is from Swift's work: the two groups are named
>>>> onomatopoetically (?). The Hwhynums (?) (too lazy to go down and look
>>>> in Swift) are named based on the horse's whinny sound. The Yahoos are
>>>> based on what sounds humans make (Yay! Hoo!).
>>>>
>>>> I call people "yahoos" all the time. So do others in my family.
>>>> You're engaging in some very egocentric thinking, which is flawed.
>>>>
>>>>>We should all be familiar with the "yahoo.com" ads on TV. It's
>>>>>pronounced YAH-hoo (~yaahue), or even yah-HOO (~yaahhue) in the TV
>>>>>ads, not YAY-hoo as m-w.com says (not that m-w.com isn't a great
>>>>>resource). The ad pronunciation is perhaps a billion times more
>>>>>frequent in the ears of most folks than any other.
>>>>
>>>> ---Amy West
>>>>
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