Boondoggles

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Katie. I’m calling from Boston.

Hi, Katie.

Hello, Katie.

Hi.

What can we do for you?

So I have a question about a craft term that I, an activity that I used to do when I was little, and I know that it’s still popular. It’s done in a lot of summer camps, and I think that’s where I picked it up. The word is boondoggle.

The word is boondoggle?

Boondoggle, yeah.

Boondoggle.

What kind of craft is that, Katie?

It’s these, like, plastic string sort of things that you weave together. And I used to make little, I would make, like, keychains for my mom and myself. People made, like, longer length ones. And I was wondering because I always called it boondoggle. But then when I moved, I heard a completely different word that I was really kind of surprised to hear about.

Was it lanyard? That’s what I made.

Well, that’s what a couple of my friends have said. They said, oh, I called that lanyard.

Yeah, yeah.

I actually posted a picture on my Facebook and I said, okay, what is this called?

Oh, really?

Yeah, and everybody that answered, almost everybody that answered, all said boondoggle.

Oh, really?

And the word that I heard…

These are all your friends from back home, right?

Yeah, they’re all people from… I’m originally from Buffalo, New York.

Okay.

And these were all people from the western New York area or Buffalo. But the word that I heard when I moved to Boston, I heard it called GIMP.

G-I-M-P, GIMP?

Yes.

Yeah.

For the actual thing that you create?

Well, I think it’s for the material. And that was another thing that came up. Because I think some people use it interchangeably to describe both the material and the activity.

Right, right.

Not surprising, but yes, they do.

So you grew up near Buffalo. You called it boondoggle. In Boston, people seem to call it GIMP, and you’ve heard elsewhere that other people call it lanyard.

Yep.

There’s a lot to talk about here. We’ll try to break this down, make it pretty concise, all right? And you’ll feel better, I promise.

You’ll promise.

Okay.

First, boondoggle. Boondoggle, interestingly enough, appears to have its roots near Rochester, New York, not far from where you grew up.

Woo-hoo.

Yep, okay, that makes sense. So 1920s, 1930s, it comes out of scouting there. It’s the kind of thing that Boy Scouts might make. And it’s really started to show up on the scene in the newspapers in the 1930s. And there’s a lot more to be written about this, or to be said about this. We’ll link to some really great histories of boondoggle. But the word just kind of popped up out of nowhere. And immediately, of course, the true and false etymology started popping up. We don’t really know where the word, you know, how the parts boon and doggle got together. But we do know that it originally meant the very thing you’re talking about, these little twisty things that you might use for stuff tied around your neck or key fobs or, I don’t know. Or to keep those little hands busy at camp, you know?

Exactly, exactly.

Bookmarks.

It used to occupy me like all summer.

It’s all kinds of knotting and braiding of certain kinds of string or twine or fabric or what have you, right?

Right.

All right, so that’s boondoggle.

And because that word meant kind of busy work, it was borrowed very quickly into the political sphere to mean a government program, which apparently accomplished nothing, particularly if you weren’t for the program, that wasted a lot of public money.

So that’s how most people know and use boondoggle.

Now, gimp, on the other hand, is a kind of fabric, we’ll call it similar to yarn, right?

Not quite yarn.

You can find gimp used on some military uniforms.

It’s not the braiding exactly, but some British military uniforms in history have had gimp cord kind of on the shoulder.

Yeah, and it’s not covered in plastic like our lanyards were.

No, but it’s a long, twisted thing, right?

Okay, right.

Gimp is primarily used in the Northeast and in the UK, and it’s not widely known in the United States.

And it is completely unrelated to gimp, meaning somebody who’s been hobbled or somebody who doesn’t walk with a normal gait, right?

Oh, okay.

And actually, I know people in the disability rights movement who have adopted gimp in the way that a lot of minority groups have adopted other negative terms.

And they use it very proudly.

They call themselves gimps, and they’re very proud of it.

So like reclaiming that term?

Yes, exactly.

But you can only use it for people like that if you are one of those people.

Right, or affiliated with them or something.

And so that’s two.

Boondogling gimp.

Lanyard is a little more straightforward.

It comes from the ropes used in sailing.

Yeah.

And there’s a fourth term that you haven’t mentioned that I feel compelled to mention.

And this is the French term for these things.

It is the Scooby-Doo.

And I kid you not, it’s spelled differently than the cartoon dog.

It’s S-C-O-U-B-I-D-O-U, the Scooby-Doo.

Scooby-Doo.

It’s something like that.

And it predates the dog.

It comes from the 1950s.

He didn’t show up until the late 1960s, right?

And it is named after scat music and jazz.

Really?

And it turns out that Scooby-Doo the dog got his name from the kind of scat that Frank Sinatra did in some of his songs, such as Strangers in the Night.

Wow, you opened a can of lanyards.

Or boondoggles.

You opened a can of boondoggles.

I did.

I think that was the most comments I’ve ever gotten on my Facebook wall when I posted that picture and everybody weighed in about what it was.

Is that right?

Fantastic. Wonderful.

Yeah, it was really interesting.

Oh, memories of summer camp.

Katie, thank you so much for calling.

Thank you so much.

It was very interesting to find out.

I love your show.

Thank you.

We’ll post more links to more information on our website, all right?

Okay, great. Thanks.

Bye, Katie.

That is terrific.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Good for keeping kids busy, that’s for sure.

What did you call it?

Boondoggle, lanyard, gimp, something else?

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