An Alabama man wonders about the verb to pooh-pooh, meaning to disdain or disapprove. It has nothing to do with the similar-sounding word for excrement, but rather the noise one makes when being dismissive. It started as simply pooh in the 1500s, was reduplicated by the 1600s, and by the 1800s, it’s commonly used as a verb. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Origin of “Pooh-Pooh””
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Well, hello, my name is Kevin and I am from Alabama.
I have a question about the word poo-poo, P-O-O-H, P-O-O-H.
I first heard it as a kid, poo-poo to the who’s. The Grinch said with a sneer, it’s almost Christmas. It’s practically here.
And then I saw in Newsweek magazine where Congress poo-pooed this one congressman’s bill. What can you tell me about it?
To poo-poo something. So you’re taking this to mean what? Say no or disapprove.
Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Just to clear the air a little bit, it doesn’t have anything to do with poop or excrement or feces.
No, that’s P-O-O.
Yeah. There’s an H on the end.
But there’s a lot of similarity there, and people might think that if you say you’re poo-pooing the ear, it’s like, you know, not literally, but figuratively throwing poo on a thing.
You’re not doing that.
Yeah. What it is, is it’s a spelling version of the sound that you make when you have a sudden disregard for something.
So there’s this sharp plosive sound that you make when you are reacting dismissively.
So you go, like it’s a sharp exhalation of air with a P sound at the beginning, like, right?
And so it’s basically a spelling version of that.
So we made the sound first, somebody spelled it as a word, and now we say the word as a word rather than making the sound.
Well, we also make the sound, but we also say the word.
Did Dr. Seuss actually make up that word?
No, no, it’s much older than that.
It’s 1500s, easily.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, it goes back to the 1500s.
It starts as a single word to poo something. Again, no reference to excrement.
And then both as a noun as an interjection, eventually shows up by the 1600s as reduplicated.
And this is a linguistic term that means to be duplicated, to say more than once for emphasis.
And so it shows up by the 1600s as poo-poo.
And then we get the verb.
Redundant.
It’s not redundant.
No, it’s emphasis.
It’s a reinforcement.
Oh, okay.
And then we get it as a verb by the 1800s.
Well, thank you very much for your time.
This was really fun.
You guys have a good day.
Bye-bye.
Thank you very much.
All righty.
Bye-bye.
Thanks for calling, Kevin.
Take care.
Call us with your language question, 877-929-9673, or send it to us an email.
The address is words@waywordradio.org.
