the ol' hookeroo revisited

[Laurence Horn]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who was reminded of this thread when
watching Australia's World Cup matches; the team is standardly
referred to as "the socceroos".  Nice the way the velar pops up, as
in "buckaroo", "kangaroo", and "(the old) hookeroo", much like the
/k/ of "alcoholic", "workaholic", "chocoholic", "sexaholic", etc.
At the rate they're going, the socceroos may soon get the ol'
hookeroo.

LH


At 3:53 PM -0400 4/28/10, Charles Doyle wrote:
>In Nathaniel West's _Day of the Locust_ (1939), the tough-talking
>dwarf Abe fumes, "So she thinks she can give me the fingeroo . . .
>."  There, of course, it's just -oo that needs to be affixed.
>
>--Charlie
>
>
>---- Original message ----
>>Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:47:35 -0400
>>From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> (on behalf
>>of Jonathan Lighter
>><wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>)-------------------------------------
>>
>>The evidence in HDAS suggests that gossip columnist Walter Winchell
>>popularized the "-eroo" suffix around 1930-31.
>>
>>"-Erino" was similarly used from the 1890s on. So "-eroo" presumably
>>originated as a variation, suggested (again presumably) by the fanciful
>>sound of "kangaroo" and "buckaroo."
>>
>>My own usage sense is that the quality added by "-eroo" is  intended to be
>>one of cynical jocularity. The addition of "the old..." increases it.
>>
>>I think the practice of generating items like "hookeroo" in this way is
>>pretty old-fashioned.
>>
>  >JL
>>

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