# Deadly Yo-Yos

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadly-yo-yos/164717>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 28, 2003, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadly-yo-yos/164717 "2003-03-28T05:21:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadly-yo-yos/164717/1 "2003-03-28T05:21:24Z")

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Okay, so I’m sort of watching _Octopussy_, and the scene with the radial saw blade yo-yo of death comes on, and I got to thinking: The toy yo-yo is supposedly based on a Filipino weapon of some sort. So, what’d the Filipino weapon (if there was one) look like and how did it work?

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**Author:** ![Violet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ebca7d/32.png) [@Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Violet)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadly-yo-yos/164717/2 "2003-03-28T05:42:58Z")

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Check out  
[http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/myo-yo.html](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/myo-yo.html)

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**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadly-yo-yos/164717/3 "2003-03-28T05:48:45Z")

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**D’oh!**

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**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadly-yo-yos/164717/4 "2003-03-28T07:26:29Z")

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The Substitute 2 (or 3), starring Treat Williams, features Williams’s veteran/mercenary/substitute-teacher-in-blackboard-jungle character lecturing a classroom full of gang members on why it’s important to know history and geography. He starts playing with a yo-yo and talking about the Phillipines, rudeness ensues, and soon he breaks some kid’s nose - with his yo-yo.

They’re really, really, bad movies.

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**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deadly-yo-yos/164717/5 "2003-03-28T12:37:06Z")

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Looking through _old_ classics journals, I came across an account of an ancient Greek statue that once held — a yo-yo!

What’s interesting is that this was before the term “yo-yo” had entered the American lexicon. The author called the toy an “aristobolus” (not a “disk”, as in Dex’s article). Where he got that term from I do not know.