Popinjay

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Brian from Eureka, California. How’s it going?

Hi, Brian. Welcome to the program. Everything’s groovy here. How about there?

It’s nice. Good weather. Everything’s doing well out here.

What can we help you with, Brian?

I’ve been trying to figure out this word.

I’ve been reading a couple, I guess, Civil War history books recently.

And this word is popinjay. P-O-P-I-N-J-A-Y.

And it seems like a lot of these books, you know, they have a lot of the guys’ journal entries for, you know, anecdotal evidence.

And it seems like a lot of these, like, line staff military guys would use the term Poppin’ J as, like, a derogatory term regarding, like, a commanding officer, someone that they felt would, you know, be mean to them.

Or if I was to draw parallel, I’d say, like, a Napoleon complex kind of thing.

He’s an arrogant little Poppin’ J.

I never heard it before, and it baffled me.

Well, we can help you with that.

I mean, it makes perfect sense if you know the origin of this term.

A popinjay is a parrot.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, and so the idea is that, you know,

Sort of in the same way that a parrot has that kind of gaudy plumage

And is probably vain and conceited about it,

Then a popinjay is that kind of person,

That kind of vain, conceited person,

Exactly what you’re describing, somebody with a Napoleon complex.

Yeah, so in a military environment, that might be an officer who takes excessive pride in the customs and the costumes and the finery and the ceremony of his position.

Yeah.

Yeah, that definitely ties in where they made other statements where they gave a good explanation.

They would also call them like a bandbox boy was a term for an officer who they felt like spent excessive time in the field, like grooming and making sure their uniform looked nice.

Oh, really?

Like a band member.

You know, like a band member of the time would transport their uniform in a band box to make sure it’s big clean.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, that’s nice.

Band box, boy.

Grant’s making a note.

I am indeed.

He’s adding it to his collection.

But, yeah, Papagayo is a great word, and it goes way, way, way back.

It comes to us from Persian via Arabic, via French, I think, or Spanish.

Papagayo in Spanish is parrot.

Papagallo in Italian.

If you’ve had Papagallo shoes, they have a name that means parrot.

So Poppin’ J comes from parrot.

And Poppin’ J green is a shade of green.

It’s sort of that bright, same green as the plumage on a parrot.

Interesting.

Well, thank you for solving the mystery for me without Google or anything like that.

Our pleasure, Brian.

We aim to please.

Thanks for calling.

All right.

Thank you.

Have a nice day.

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