[Ads-l] RES: Bop as a girls name

[Dan Goncharoff]

I guess no one here would allow someone to name their child Richard...

I am surprised no one here knows that Cyndi Lauper's "She Bop" is about
female masturbation.

DanG

On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 3:02 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: RES: Bop as a girls name
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Professor Cohen is entirely correct.
>
> There is something about the word "bop" that many English speakers find
> inherently ridiculous.  It usually means to strike someone (as on the head
> or in the nose), and mostly appears in humorous contexts, as in cartoons.
>
> Even in my university linguistics courses, the name of the great German
> philologist Franz Bopp elicited laughter as soon as it was mentioned.
>
> So "Bop," I believe, would be a poor choice as a forename for anybody in
> the English-speaking world.
>
> JL
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 2:19 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu>
> wrote:
>
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: RES: Bop as a girls name
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > > Poster:       Christopher Philippo <toff at MAC.COM>
> > > Subject:      Re: Bop as a girls name
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> > --=3D
> > > [on the 16th]
> > >=20
> > > The word bop is probably best known as a synonym for hit or punch, I
> > woul=
> > d
> > > think.  It shows up in that sense in the song for children ...
> >
> > surely the word is also well known as a shortening (of "bebop", a
> > shortenin=
> > g attested from the 1940s)  with uses as a noun (bop music), verb (just
> > bop=
> > ping along), nonsense syllable (Be-Bop-A-Lula), and the stem in "bopper"
> > (a=
> > s in the Big Bopper).
> >
> > NOAD2 has both senses.
> >
> > arnold
> >
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>
> --
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