Yahoo
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2014 2:49 pm
Without the !:
• yahoo •
Pronunciation: yah-hu • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun & Interjection
Meaning: 1. [Noun] A clod, bumpkin, hick, klutz, lout, rube or philistine. A clumsy, unsophisticated person without much learning. 2. [Interjection] A cry of happy excitement or exultation, as in Yahoo! I won the lottery!
Notes: The founders of the Yahoo!® search engine apparently neglected to read Gulliver's Travels before picking a name for their company or they might have chosen a less ambiguous one, say, Geronimo! The noun, yahoo, is an old word for an uneducated dirt farmer. Now that farmers are as well-educated as the rest of us, the name applies to any clumsy bumpkin, from the country, city, or points in between. Yahooism "acting like a yahoo" has been tried, as well as yahoodom "all yahoos taken together". Use them at your own risk.
In Play: This Good Word is still used most widely in reference to someone lacking a penchant for clear thinking: "Some yahoo from the Flat Earth Society wants equal time in our geography class." When the request was turned down, the same young fellow shouted, "Yahoo! I hate being in school, anyhow!"
Word History: The noun yahoo and the interjection are probably different words. The noun first appeared in Jonathan Swift's 1726 novel mentioned above. Yahoos in that novel were degraded humans used as beasts of burden by the Houyhnhnms, a breed of rational horses. The interjection is probably a variant of yoo-hoo or yo-ho, extensions of you used to attract someone's attention. Cowboys resort to it often when herding cattle.