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Whence these terms?
I can trace Pooh-Bah back to the character in Gilbert & Sullivan's Mikado (c. 1885), and Pooh Bear back to Winnie the Pooh (c. 1920). But I doubt that the latter came from the former, as their personalities are entirely different. My suspicion is that the share a common, prior source. Does anyone know?
Related, and possible clue: I recall reading that many of the character names in The Mikado were taken from the baby-talk used in British nurseries: e.g., the character Pitti-sing is baby-talk for "pretty thing". I have no confirmation for this, however.
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I have read that the inspiration for Pooh Bear came from the pet cub that a Canadian soldier in WWI brought to England, and was compelled to give to a zoo, where A.A.Milne brought his son to see it. It seems to me that at the end of the book a remark that the name came from the toy bear having a fly light on his nose, and going "Pooh" to drive it away, followed by a disclaimer I cannot quote accurately.
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Here is a rather long URL about the beginning of the Pooh stories. I very much enjoyed it, but could not find the reference to the fly-on-the-nose being the origin of the name "Pooh". http://www.pooh-corner.com/pooh.html
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Carpal Tunnel
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I may be an old-timer (going into late 50s) but I do have a five-year-old and a three-year-old running around the house. In the movie the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh here is an afterword which discusses Pooh's namesake. Christopher Robin, the son of A. A. Milne, was enamored of a swan in an English zoo, a black swan if I remember arightly, and I will rerun the video later to check. The swan's name was Winnipeg; the Pooh part comes from something else in his early life, which I will look up and post later. And THAT, dear friends, is TRUE TRUE TRUE.
Pooh-bah is, as Keiva stated, from the Mikado, so far as I know.
Someday, when I have arrived at the exalted state of being one here, I will invite my fellow Pooh-Bahs together, and brew a pot of tea and talk over old times. Soon thereafter we will start a new thread entitled "The rites of Pooh-bah tea."
TEd
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I, too, Dr. Bill, remember the fly on the nose reference as the origin of Pooh Bear's name and from early in one of the books to boot.
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Dear TEd: How I wish I could go through the rites of Poohbah tea again.
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Not me. You couldn't pay me enough to go thorough that turmoil again.
Other views?
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old hand
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old hand
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Keiva solicits Other views?Well, on the bright side, ignorance was indeed bliss... but I didn't know enough then to appreciate it. Catch-22.  Drat.
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When I said I'd welcome being an adolescent again, I was assuming that I would know as much as I do now.
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Puberty (pu-bear t, TEd?) takes us back to the Pooh question. As to whether the history goes back no further than Milne and Gilbert: pooh itself (as in to belittle, or pooh-pooh a notion) goes back further:
Hamlet I.3. (Polonius): Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl.
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