My new word for the day is hoodoo, a column of eccentrically shaped rock produced by differential weathering.

This meaning of hoodoo is tertiary to (1) synonym for voodoo, and (2) bad luck.

My Webster's does not suggest the etymology of the word outside of the voodoo context, but I speculate that the fantastic shapes of the geographical hoodoos suggested voodoo spirits to somebody. Can anybody confirm or refute that origin?

1879 W. Whitman Specimen Days & Collect. (1882) 148, I had wanted to go to the Yellowstone river region—wanted specially to see... the ‘hoodoo’ or goblin land of that country. 1884 H. Butterworth Zigzag Journ. Western States 54 There is a region there called Goblin Land, full of lofty stone monuments, the remnants of erosion, called hoodoos.

-OED2

1.volcano Hoodoo Volcanic Complex Subglacial volcano Englacial ...
Geology and Stratigraphy of the Hoodoo Mountain volcanic
complex, northwestern British Columbia, Canada. ...
http://perseus.geology.ubc.ca/~bedwards/hoodoo.html
More Results From: perseus.geology.ubc.ca

2.Hoodoo
... its shape is bizarre or fantastic. And a proper hoodoo (the word is the same as voodoo),
it seems ... a scientific glossary, and just another reason I love geology. ...
http://geology.about.com/library/bl/images/blhoodoo.htm
More Results From: geology.about.com

3.Geology of Bryce Canyon National Park
... go to Bryce Canyon NP home page return to Park Geology home page ... Hoodoos Cast Their
Spell Hoodoo - a pillar of rock, usually of fantastic shape, left by erosion ...
http://www.aqd.nps.gov/grd/parks/brca/
More Results From: www.aqd.nps.gov

gosh, bill -- don't you like Walt Whitman? :)

Walt Whitman is OK, but he didn't leave any pictures. The URLs did.

Whitman quote

We thank you for that, tsuwm! Now can you find an E. O'Neill quote to confirm it?
Who do the voodoo like you do!? [just because somebody had to say it-e]

And thanks, Dr. Bill...we'll take an "OK" from you as an exhaltation!

Dear WO'N:"exhaltation" Was that a typo, or did you mean I took the salt out of Walt Whitman?
I said "OK" not as a putdown, but because I wasn't prepared to evaluate Whitman in a few words.
Now let's see you find a quote by Eugene O'Neill about Christmas.

"exhaltation"

What the "H"!?...I dunno, Dr. Bill. Maybe I Freudian-slipped a "halt" into the middle of it, just to be safe.

>Now let's see you find a quote by Eugene O'Neill about Christmas.

well, that's a fairly tall order... but I did find somebody selling this:


MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA
New York: Horace Liveright, 1931 [November]
First trade edition, sixth printing, with dust jacket

NOTES: Signed presentation copy to Bernice Elliott, who played "Louisa" in the original NY production. Signed by members of the original cast and by members of the touring company.

INSCRIPTION: [On front free endpaper]

To Bernice Elliott -- "Louisa" -- / with grateful appreciation! -- / Eugene O'Neill / Christmas 1931

O'Neill signed these editions while in New York on December 22, 1931 as Christmas presents for the cast.

I bow to the previous posts on "Hoodoo". I've never heard it used in that context, but, hey, I bet there're a lot of words out there about which I could say the same if only I heard them in a context of which I had no previous experience.

I read, don't know when, about the prevalence of using existing words to describe new scientific phenomena which grew up around the 1830s onwards until about 1890. Wherever possible, anything new from science or industry was named using the Queen's English. None of that foreign muck in our language, thank you, sir! Towards the end of the century the practice was displaced by the revived - or continued - institutional torture of the Latin and Greek languages for the same purpose.

From memory, the argument went that there was a cultural inhibition against the frivolous adulteration of the language with new words, no matter how derived, which grew up out the conservative Victorian societal norms which held sway during that period, even though from an engineering and scientific perspective the same period was perhaps the richest that had ever occurred. Linguistically, the middle and later years of the 19th century were years of consolidation and descriptivism rather than of innovation. Hence the development of the OED and Websters, yadda, yadda.


Don't know whether I agree with all of it, some of it or none of it, but ... {wink]

I read "about the [claimed] prevalence of using existing words to describe new scientific phenomena which grew up around the 1830s onwards until about 1890. Wherever possible, anything new from science or industry was named using the Queen's English. None of that foreign muck in our language, thank you, sir!"
Don't know whether I agree with all of it

Interesting, CK. Let's see what we can find supporting or contrary to the theory you read.

some quick thoughts, to which others can add:
supporting: "railroad" (shortly before the period in question)
contrary: "telegraph". are "vaccination" and "telephone" within the period?

O'Neill and Christmas

The marvels of your magic never cease to amaze, O TsuwmMeister! Have you been taking Gandalf lessons?