A Spelling Thing That Has Long Irked Me

Kooky and Cuckoo. That's bothered me ever since I was a kid. I guess I thought that if kooky is with K's and O's, cuckoo should be kookoo.

Never looked it up till now, though. Sure enough, American Heritage supposes that "kooky" came from "cuckoo."

Nuts.

Now THAT'S Etymology

I've never found word origins very interesting. Every once in a while, I'll wonder how we ended up with a word like "shampoo," so I'll look it up to see that it comes from a Hindi word meaning "to massage."

But for the most part, in those moments when I'm feeling both intellectually curious and energetic enough to do something about it, I'd much rather learn about chemistry or geology or modern French or credit default swaps than the points A, B, and C that one of our words passed through. (It probably has to do with my aversion to history and linear time in general.)

Today, however, I make an exception. It's a passage I came across in "The Omnivore's Dilemma" in a chapter about corn.

"The shelled cobs were burned for heat and stacked by the privy as a rough substitute for toilet paper. (Hence the American slang term "corn hole.")

Now that's etymology.

Words I'm Looking Up (One in an occasional series on words I'm looking up)

"helluva"

adj. Slang Used as an intensive: He's a helluva great guy.
Alteration of 'hell of a.' -- American Heritage Dictionary

* adj. phonetic sp. of 'hell of a' -- Webster's New World College
Dictionary

Take that anyone who believes that words don't evolve from misuse and misspellings.

* Asterisk stands in for the little star Webster's uses to denote an "Americanism." If only I had a British English dictionary I'd check under "b" for "bloodyhelluva."