boo (interj. 1800, v. 1833)

[Wilson Gray]

Ca.1955, All-American football player, later the Presbyterian
minister, the Rev. Donn Moomaw, played center for UCLA. When he ran
out onto the field, the fans chanted, "Moo-oo-oo-ma-a-w!"

This is the earliest case, IME, in which the announcers felt the need
to explain that the (UCLA) fans were not booing the player.

FWIW, The Rev. Moomaw became Ronald Reagan's personal Rev. Billy
Graham, until it was discovered that, though Moomaw had retired from
the sport, he was still a player in the game, tapping the arse of some
five different women, in addition to that of his wife.

-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain





On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 9:06 AM, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: boo (interj. 1800, v. 1833)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> What an elegant little essay, Ben!
>
> As for oooing (not aahing) to express mass affection for an athlete or other celebrity whose name contains the elongatable vowel /u/, like Bruce Springsteen or Bruce Benedict (of the Atlanta Braves in the 1980s), occasioning frequent notations by radio and TV announcers that the crowd isn't actually booing: Â The first instance I ever heard concerned the University of Texas football player Steve Wooster in the late 1960s, whose introduction and whose exploits were commonly marked with a resounding unison "Woooooooo" from the fans.
>
> --Charlie
> _____________________________________________________________
>
>
> ---- Original message ----
>>Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 01:01:14 -0400
>>From: Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>>Subject: boo (interj. 1800, v. 1833)
>
>>
>>My latest Word Routes column is on the origins of booing:
>>
>>http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/1811/
>>
>>Following up this interview on WNYC's Soundcheck:
>>
>>http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/episodes/2009/04/08
>>
>>Here are early cites I mention in the column:
>>
>>* "boo" (interj.)
>>
>>1800 Maria Edgeworth _Castle Rackrent_ 76 Oh, boo! boo! (says I, making light of it, to see what he would go on to next). [Footnote: "Boo! Boo! an exclamation equivalent to Pshaw! or Nonsense."]
>>
>>* "boo" (v. intr.)
>>
>>1833 _The Kaleidoscope_ (Eton College) 25 Mar. 177 The whole school raised a yell, booing, hissing, and scraping feet.
>>
>>* "boo" (v. trans.)
>>
>>1833 _The Kaleidoscope_ (Eton College) 25 Mar. 177 _At last_ get into upper school twenty-five minutes past seven--questioned by master--boo'd, laughed at, shinned in getting a seat.
>>
>>The last two quotes are in a republished diary of an Eton boy dated "September 182-".
>
>>http://books.google.com/books?id=O3QPAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA177
>>
>>Someone familiar with Etonian sources can probably antedate these. There are a number of secondary references to booing directed at Eton headmaster John Keate taking place as early as 1810.
>>
>>--Ben Zimmer
>
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