where did the word 'shampoo' come from?

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?
considering the fact that sham and poo are not particularly flattering words on their own, i was just wondering about it.
why is it the word for something that 'supposedly' cleans your hair?

― donna (donna), Saturday, 19 July 2003 07:02 (twenty-two years ago)

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=shampoo

― oops (Oops), Saturday, 19 July 2003 07:11 (twenty-two years ago)

oh. thanks. should have done that myself i guess :-)

― donna (donna), Saturday, 19 July 2003 07:19 (twenty-two years ago)

i figured you were drunk or som'n

― oops (Oops), Saturday, 19 July 2003 07:23 (twenty-two years ago)

the idea that it might somehow have derived from "sham poo" is tremendous and must be encouraged

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 19 July 2003 09:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Just one Freudian slip away from "ersatzcum" (that's pidgin latin for 'to knead with')

― nestmanso (nestmanso), Saturday, 19 July 2003 10:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I have only myself to blame if this thread conjures up the spectre of minor pop bands.

― Larcole (Nicole), Saturday, 19 July 2003 12:05 (twenty-two years ago)

when did white people start using it?

― Mike Hanle y (mike), Saturday, 19 July 2003 13:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I've been wondering this for YEARS!!!! Thank you ILE, best people ever

(no honestly I have been wondering about this, in training I used to ask people all the time 'in which language is shampoo NOT a cognate/loanword??)

hindi!!!

that makes so much sense now

― Millar (Millar), Saturday, 19 July 2003 15:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Mr. Show to thread!

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Saturday, 19 July 2003 15:37 (twenty-two years ago)

ILE: making the underestimated art of the pub quiz easier for one and all!

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Saturday, 19 July 2003 22:21 (twenty-two years ago)

in training I used to ask people all the time 'in which language is shampoo NOT a cognate/loanword??)

Where you training or being trained? If the former, classic that you had to reply "No, I don't know either, I was just wondering if you did"

Some other words that came from India:

bandana, bangle, bungalow, calico, catamaran, cot, chintz, cheroot, cummerbund, cushy, dinghy, dungarees, ginger, grieve, indigo, jodhpurs, juggernaut, jungle, khaki, loot, musk, orange, pyjamas, pariah, paisley, pepper, pundit, serendipity, sugar, tea, teak, thug, verandah, -ware (the suffix)

http://www.wmich.edu/dialogues/themes/indianwords.htm

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 19 July 2003 22:33 (twenty-two years ago)

And 'Dastoorism,' a minor philosophical movement that met its match in 'Larcolology.'

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 19 July 2003 22:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Larcolology is a faddish irrelevance.

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 19 July 2003 22:43 (twenty-two years ago)

what did we call orange before we stole the indian word for it?

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 19 July 2003 22:43 (twenty-two years ago)

"Lemon for pussies."

― Tep (ktepi), Saturday, 19 July 2003 22:45 (twenty-two years ago)

The word is possibly ultimately from Dravidian, a family of languages spoken in southern India and northern Sri Lanka. The Dravidian word or words were adopted into the Indo-European language Sanskrit with the form nraga. As the fruit passed westward, so did the word, as evidenced by Persian nrang and Arabic nranj. Arabs brought the first oranges to Spain, and the fruit rapidly spread throughout Europe. The important word for the development of our term is Old Italian melarancio, derived from mela, “fruit,” and arancio, “orange tree,” from Arabic nranj. Old Italian melarancio was translated into Old French as pume orenge, the o replacing the a because of the influence of the name of the town of Orange, from which oranges reached the northern part of France. The final stage of the odyssey of the word was its borrowing into English from the Old French form orenge. Our word is first recorded in Middle English in a text probably composed around 1380, a time preceding the arrival of the orange in the New World.

Before 1380, yeah - lemon for puffies.

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 19 July 2003 22:47 (twenty-two years ago)

This is a great tidbit (I know, "titbit") to bring up during those "why does nothing rhyme with 'orange'" conversations. That's cool.

― Tep (ktepi), Saturday, 19 July 2003 22:49 (twenty-two years ago)

In Hindi it rhymes with 'sad' and 'glad' and thus features in every song.

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 19 July 2003 22:52 (twenty-two years ago)

also i demand that we now go back to calling it a "nranj"

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 19 July 2003 23:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Larcolology is a faddish irrelevance.

Foolish words from a cultist!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 19 July 2003 23:09 (twenty-two years ago)

i just looked up in my latin dictionary and there is NO LATIN WORD FOR ORANGE!!

wtf!!??!!

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 19 July 2003 23:25 (twenty-two years ago)

And why do the French seem to say "shampooing"? Hindi noun turned English verb that English speakers don't use as a noun turned into one anyway? Yeeps! Or did that "ing" come from someplace else?

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Saturday, 19 July 2003 23:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh wait, mark, are you asking about the color, not the fruit? (Cause presumably the Romans just didn't have the fruit, judging by what N. posted, and if they or the Greeks encountered it via the Persians I'd guess they'd use that word.)

― Tep (ktepi), Saturday, 19 July 2003 23:27 (twenty-two years ago)

"ing" is the french for "ant" (or pismire, as we say in the UK)

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 19 July 2003 23:27 (twenty-two years ago)

YES THE COLOUR!!

"What colour wd you like yr curtains, Caesar?"
"Well you know red and you know yellow?... "
HOW DID THEY EVER GET THEMSELVES AN EMPIRE???

actually frankly i am sickened by a world in which such a major hue is just named after some mouldy old fruit which just happens to be that colour!!

(yes yes lime but that is a MINOR SHADE AT BEST)

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 19 July 2003 23:31 (twenty-two years ago)

The passion!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 19 July 2003 23:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Educated guess, from having looked up words related to 'red' and 'purple' in the OED (and I can't look around there now cause my site license from UNO expired and I haven't got the password for Bloomington's):

They probably called it "red" or "yellow." In the pre-modern -- actually, pre-Renaissance, I'd bet -- age, color terms were used differently. "Violet" could refer to shades of blue which would be inconsistent with its current usage as synonymous with "purple." "Crimson" (it might be "scarlet," one of the two) referred more to the rarity and darkness of a dye than its hue, so could be a range from red to purple. And so on. They didn't have or use color names based strictly on primary/secondary/tertiary distinctions from the color wheel ...

... at least in English. I have no idea if that was the case in other languages, but it's a possible explanation, at least.

(The timing also dovetails well with the introduction of "orange" into the language, and helps explain why the fruit and the color share a name.)

― Tep (ktepi), Saturday, 19 July 2003 23:35 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, Christ's blood is purple in Margery Kempe and all the other Med. stuff I had to read at one point and now can't recall other than that christ's blood was purple.

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Sunday, 20 July 2003 01:58 (twenty-two years ago)

That was what with all the water he turned into wine etc his blood was mostly wine you see which was better than Matthew whose blood was mostly "Thoroughgoods strong lager" with Tolstoy Spirit Drink chasers.
N.B. I am starting to disintegrate a bit and really should go to bed.

― Matt (Matt), Sunday, 20 July 2003 02:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Does this mean that "Purple Haze" is actually about hanging Jesus upside-down by his ankles and making all the blood rush to his head and therefore rendering him woozy?

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Sunday, 20 July 2003 03:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Here's an idea: perhaps those in ancient times knew that orange is a TERRIBLE RUBBISH UGLY HORRIBLE COLOR and didn't use it, being sensible and all, and thus felt no need to give a name to such a HIDEOUS ABOMINATION UPON THE SENSES OF ALL SENTIENT BEINGS and thusly shunned the color. Did anyone here think about that? That's why the Romans are better than us.

― Ally (mlescaut), Sunday, 20 July 2003 04:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe if they'd eaten more oranges they wouldn't have GONE MAD WITH SCURVY AND KILLED JESUS!

― Tep (ktepi), Sunday, 20 July 2003 04:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I used to work with a guy who would go up to girls and ask them, "Would you shampoo my asshairs?" I miss the '80s sometimes.

― Bryan (Bryan), Sunday, 20 July 2003 06:15 (twenty-two years ago)

There was a contest in the Middle Ages for a new colour, because everyone had gotten bored with the ones we had. Orange won, probably because of excitement over the new fruit, but there was some debate about where it should be put in the spectrum. It nearly came between green and blue.

There's talk about adding a new one, but the executives are trying to come up with the right Pop Idol/BB TV format.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 20 July 2003 09:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I know this isn't exactly correct, but it's still sorta funny to say that the French douche their heads.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 1 August 2003 23:29 (twenty-two years ago)

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