Evergreen State College in Washington is certainly in the running for best school mascot, with the Geoduck. But you can’t forget the UC Santa Cruz Fighting Banana Slugs, or the Scottsdale Community College Fighting Artichokes. The term mascot itself was popularized by a 19th century French comic opera, called La Mascotte. The word is also related to the Spanish term for “pet,” mascota. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Etymology of Mascot”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Jordan Falk calling from Olympia, Washington.
Hi, Jordan. Welcome to the show.
Hey, Jordan. How can we help you?
Well, I had a question about school mascots.
I’ve been thinking about how some schools come up with some funny mascots.
Here in Olympia, we have the Evergreen State College, and their mascot is the geoduck.
The geoduck.
It’s kind of a giant clam.
Yeah, that’s G-E-O-D-U-C-K, right? Geoduck.
Yeah, that’s right. It’s kind of a local specialty around here.
The fighting geoducks?
That’s right. That’s right.
Wow.
It doesn’t really inspire fear, but I was really curious about where that word comes from, the word mascot,
And also what kind of funny mascots other people have around from where they’re from.
Oh, that’s a great question.
That’s a really good question. Can I tell you my favorite before we look at the etymology?
It’s the University of California at Santa Cruz banana slugs.
Because these long yellow slugs, about the color of a banana, about the size of a smallish banana that you find in the redwood forest here in California.
My wife loves these.
We have so many pictures of my wife holding banana slugs.
Mascot is a really interesting word, isn’t it, Grant?
Yeah.
It’s got something of a murky etymology early on, but it seems to go back to a French word that has to do with a person or an animal or a thing that’s a kind of talisman, something that brings good luck.
It actually got popularized by a 19th century comic opera called La Mascotte that was a French opera that had to do with some farmer who was cursed by bad luck.
And so to bring him good fortune, his brother enlisted this country girl to be his mascot.
That is his lucky charm.
But the only catch was that she had to remain a virgin.
And you can imagine how that goes.
In a comic opera.
But it’s interesting to think about it in terms of some kind of being that’s with you to give you good luck.
I’m also thinking about the Spanish word for pet, which is mascota.
It’s related to the same idea of some kind of creature that sticks around with you, a companion animal.
I saw in one of the dictionaries there was a suggestion that maybe it goes back to Latin words for mask.
Right. It might be related to mask.
So you might have masks and then witches are involved and spells are involved.
Yep, sorcery.
So all along we’re talking about magical, I don’t know, magical elements.
Right, more magical than you think of now with sports teams.
Now it’s more like a symbol of the team.
And also to get the crowd riled up, right, to do the stunts and the jokes and stuff.
Yeah, by those gooey ducks or whatever.
Do they have somebody who dresses up like a gooey duck and revs up the crowd?
They do.
They look kind of funny.
They look like a guy wearing a giant sleeping bag.
I was going to say, I bet those halftime shows are fun.
What kind of stuns can a gooey duck do?
Wow.
Well, I bet we will hear from lots of other folks like you.
With crazy mascots.
Yeah.
We want the mascot and the story, if you know it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Thank you very much, Jordan, for your call.
Really appreciate it.
Well, thank you.
All right.
Take care now.
All right.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Tell us your mascot stories.
Maybe your high school, your college, maybe elementary school,
Email words@waywordradio.org.
