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Mar 4, 2021
This week’s theme
Words coined after Gulliver’s Travels

This week’s words
lilliput
Laputan
struldbrug
yahoo
Brobdingnag

yahoo
Yahoos in the 1996 TV series Gulliver’s Travels
Image: IMDb

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

yahoo

PRONUNCIATION:
(noun: YAH-hoo, interjection: ya-HOO)

MEANING:
noun: A person who is boorish, loud, disruptive, etc.
interjection: Expressing excitement, delight, or triumph.

ETYMOLOGY:
For noun: After Yahoos, a race of brutish creatures in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Earliest documented use: 1751.
For interjection: Apparently of echoic origin. Earliest documented use: 1976.

USAGE:
“Delta CEO Ed Bastian is proposing a solution to passengers who create in-flight troubles -- a lifetime ban from flying, at least on Delta. ... Bastian should follow through on his proposal, and other airlines should consider similar bans. Doing so might prove an actual deterrent to the yahoos who think they have the right to behave badly and turn a simple flight onto an ordeal for fellow passengers and the flight crew.”
Keep the Skies Friendly; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania); Feb 9, 2021.

See more usage examples of yahoo in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Creativity -- like human life itself -- begins in darkness. We need to acknowledge this. All too often, we think only in terms of light: "And then the lightbulb went on and I got it!" It is true that insights may come to us as flashes. It is true that some of these flashes may be blinding. It is, however, also true that such bright ideas are preceded by a gestation period that is interior, murky, and completely necessary. -Julia Cameron, artist, author, teacher, filmmaker, composer, and journalist (b. 4 Mar 1948)

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