VOOZH about

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Yahoo

IsaacDMQ

Senior Member
Spanish,Colombia
Is "yahoo" an english word?
It's also an interjection, like "Hurrah!" or "Hurray!" or "Yay!"
In the sense that Florentia gives, it is an English word, and comes from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726), where it is the name of a race of deformed and uncultured humans (who live on an island also inhabited by a race of intelligent talking horses). It is reasonably common for words or expressions to enter the English language from well-known works of fiction.

"Yahoo" is probably little used with this meaning nowadays, partly because Gulliver's Travels is no longer widely read, and partly because of possible confusion with the internet business of the same name.
Yes, the word "Yahoo" is nowadays most commonly associated with the Internet giant of the same name - whose connection with the creatures of Gulliver' Travels is thought to be quite tenuous.

The Wikipedia article explains:
The word "yahoo" is a backronym for "Yet Another Hierarchically Organized Oracle" or "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle". The term "hierarchical" described how the Yahoo database was arranged in layers of subcategories, the term "oracle" was intended to mean "source of truth and wisdom", and the term "officious", rather than being related to the word's normal meaning, described the many office workers who would use the Yahoo database while surfing from work. However, Filo and Yang (Yahoo's founders) insist they mainly selected the name because they liked the slang definition of a "yahoo" (used by college students in David Filo's native Louisiana in the late 1980s and early 1990s to refer to an unsophisticated, rural Southerner): "rude, unsophisticated, uncouth." This meaning derives from the Yahoo race of fictional beings from Gulliver's Travels.
When yahoo is used in the sense of an unrefined and often loud or disruptive person does its first syllable rhyme with ray or Ra (the Egyptian sun god) or raw? By the way, I remember it being used in a DuckTales episode once, so it can't be that outdated. I remember there was a female with a shotgun who asked the three ducklings, who were trespassing on her property, "What do you yahoos want?"
When yahoo is used in the sense of an unrefined and often loud or disruptive person does its first syllable rhyme with ray or Ra (the Egyptian sun god) or raw?
In that sense, the first syllable rhymes for me with Ra: I say /ˈjɑːhuː/.

I see the WR Collins dictionary disagrees with me👁 Roll Eyes :rolleyes:
.
Well, I am not entirely sure how the Egyptian sun god is meant to be pronounced, but I pronounce it in the same way as I pronounce "yahoo". It is similar to "car" (but without the "r" sound of course) or "fa" in tonic sol-fa musical notation. OED gives the IPA pronunciation /ˈjɑːhuː/

However, I see that dictionaries give widely varying pronunciations. Collins (BrE) in yahoo - WordReference.com Dictionary of English has /jəˈhuː/, shifting the stress to the second syllable and reducing the first syllable to a schwa, while Random House (AmE) on the same page has a different pronunciation with the second syllable stressed: /yɑˈhu/. Both OED and Random House have an AmE alternative of /ˈjeɪˌhu/

I don't think Swift provided any clue as to the correct pronunciation of "Yahoo", and certainly the word "Houyhnhnm" (the name of the race of intelligent horses living on the same island as the Yahoos) has given many readers great problems with pronunciation.

By the way, I remember it being used in a DuckTales episode once, so it can't be that outdated.
Made in 1987-1990 according to Wikipedia, so that predates the internet company (founded 1994).
Ya (like ha!) who is the most common pronunciation. I think YAY who is considered around here to be a rural/country dialect version though there may be dialects in which it is common. I wouldn't be surprised if the cartoonista had landowner coming after trespassers said YAY who.
Swift's creatures are stressed on the first syllabe, and I'd put roughly thé same stress on both syllables in the cry of elation.
Thanks! Is yahoo still in common use in American English? I mean in the sense of an unrefined and often loud or disruptive person.
That dépends on the speaker/writer and their audience/readers.

(Edit: Reply to Ali Smith's previous. Note particularly that in my previous post, while my pronunciation of, "YAHOO!" is how I'd pronounce it, I think natives would agree on the my pronunciation of J. Swift's critters... except perhaps thé Yahoos among them.)
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Is yahoo still in common use in American English? I mean in the sense of an unrefined and often loud or disruptive person.
I don't think this meaning of "yahoo" has ever been "common":

Google Books Ngram Viewer

It isn't used in my dialect (northeast), but the word is familiar to me, so I assume some Americans use it. It isn't new either.
I don't know any way to determine how often it is used, or who uses it.
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