Jasmine from Miami, Florida, asks about the word boo as a term of endearment, as in Alicia Keys’ song “My Boo.” This use of boo has been especially common in Black English since the 1980s, occupying the same affectionate space as honey or baby. The modern boo likely descends from the older booboo, found in love songs from the very early 1900s, which may itself come from a playful mispronunciation of beautiful as “bootyful.” Similar terms of endearment with that initial B sound include French beau, Yiddish bubbe and bubbeleh, and Indonesian bu. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Boo” as a Pet Name for Your Byootiful Beau or Babe”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Jasmine, calling from Miami.
Hey, Jasmine.
We’re glad to have you on the show.
What’s on your mind today?
I had a word, that I wanted to know more about, and it’s the word boo.
Which kind of boo?
Like, boo.
Like, more like, it’s a term of endearment or, like, a, you know, you call someone your boo.
It’s it’s it’s heavily used like and it’s a pretty popular term, it’s more like in the, like, you know, African American community.
Mhmm.
You say, like, hey boo or that’s my boo.
I assured Alicia Keys made a number one hit song called My Boo.
And they tore it up.
That was a great song.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I I know that it’s popular in, like, you know, in my community.
But I also know, like, the nineteen hundreds or so, like, the turn what is it?
Beau?
Yeah.
Yeah.
From the French for Beautiful or or attractive.
Yeah.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
So I don’t know.
I just wanted to know maybe if you guys had some some insight on that word.
Yeah.
There are there are a couple of different inflection points here that I want to emphasize.
But like a lot of words, you know, the the path isn’t linear, and it’s not altogether clear.
But I want to confirm for you.
Yes, it is more common in the Black English world, at least since the 1980s.
And although there have been very popular songs like you mentioned, that use boo and it pops up here and there, and white people talking to white people, it’s still very…
African American, still very much Black English.
And so it hasn’t lost that sense.
To mean, you know, your honey, kind of the same linguistic spaces, honey or baby, when you’re talking to your sweetie or your shorty or whoever.
But older than that is booboo, the word twice used as an affectionate term, which goes back to the very early nineteen hundreds in a bunch of songs.
Much used exactly the same way we would talk about my booboo.
And it’s possible, and it’s not sure that it might come from an intentional mispronunciation of beautiful.
So, which leads us back to bow.
So you’d say bootyful instead of beautiful.
So instead of that BYOO sound, he would just do a B O O sound.
Bootyful.
So it’s a kind of thing you’d use in lovey dovey language when you’re talking to your sweetie.
My boo boo.
Yeah, you kind of like add some flair to it or…
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like you do with your sweetie, right?
You’re always, you’re always coming up with new stuff for your sweetie.
They, they cause you to be eloquent, I think, when there’s real love there.
Right.
But, you know, Jasmine, there’s another thing here that I want to toss in as a possible inflection point, which is the suffix poo, p o o.
And not the naughty word that has to do with bodily functions, but, a suffix that kind of indicates affection.
So if you liked me, you might call me granty poo.
Granty Pooh.
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
I do that.
I do that without even thinking about it.
These diminutives as they’re known or create what are known as hypochoristics, these affectionate terms for people.
But the P in pooh and the B in boo are easily replaceable with each other because they represent more or less the same mouth and lip position.
But the only difference is whether or not you use your vocal cords when you say them.
So they’re they’re it’s very easy for for a word to switch back and forth between that pronunciation over over time.
And, you know, and that French parallel you brought up earlier is definitely worth mentioning.
This boo is such a simple one syllable word that it has absolutely been reinvented several times in English and sounds like it occur in other languages besides the bo in French, which you used to describe a man who is attractive.
In Yiddish, we have bubbi and bubula, right?
Which originally meant grandmother, but later became generalized to mean a term of endearment for anyone.
And in Indonesian, there’s a bu, bu, which is an affectionate term of address for your mother.
It’s such a basic fundamental sound that that bee sound coming off a lip followed by a vowel is, also very similar to the first sounds that babies make.
Ba ba, right?
Nice, nice.
Babbling.
Yes.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
I like that.
So, I just I was just I love terms of endearment.
So, you know, I called 20 different people boo.
You know, a friend and You’re much a very caring person.
But but Jasmine, the main thing I want you to take away is that probably the modern boo is descended from the earlier boo boo, which is over 120 years old.
Okay, I love that.
All right.
Well, I’m going to keep on watching this or listening to the show, and maybe I’ll come back with another word.
Jasmine, take care of yourself, and we appreciate your time and your fans over Thanks for a really sweet conversation.
Yes, yes.
Thank you so much.
You guys are fun.
You too.
Bye.
Bye bye.
