I was wondering if anybody remembered this, it’s a trivia question at myecamp.com, a place where you play games for points and can get stuff with your points (Sign up at this address:
Commercial link deleted by manhattan. Do Not post links of this nature again. Ever.
It’s designed for teens (13-18), but that’s just me advertising, any idea on the answer to the question?
[Note: This message has been edited by manhattan]
It’s a fairly complicated story, but Cecil’s full answer appears in: What’s the origin of the word “boogie”?
On the website for the PBS show “Wild Indonesia,” they claim that the phrase “boogie man” comes from the ethnic group the Bugis, a seafaring people who lived in Sulawesi (Celebes) a number of centuries ago. Known at the time as fierce pirates, they became the origin of the phrase “the boogie man will getcha’!”
“The dawn of a new era is felt and not measured.” Walter Lord
“…they claim that the phrase ‘boogie man’ comes from the ethnic group the Bugis, a seafaring people who lived in Sulawesi (Celebes) a number of centuries ago. Known at the time as fierce pirates, they became the origin of the phrase ‘the boogie man will getcha’!”
The many thousands of Bugis people currently living in Sulawesi (and elsewhere in Indonesia) will doubtless be amused to learn that PBS speaks of them in the past tense. Some may also be amused to learn that PBS puts their reputation as fierce pirates in the past.
As for “Bugis” being the origin of the term “boogie man,” this isn’t what my dictionary tells me. It gives boogeyman as an alternative to bogeyman, “a monstrous imaginary figure used in threatening children or a terrifying or dreaded person or thing” (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary). I suspect it comes from bogey, bogie, or bogy: “specter, phantom” (ibid). Who’s got a a really good dictionary?
In a speech in a Toastmasters meeting a few years ago, a club member referred to a Swahili word list he had seen. His favorite phrase was “mboogie-mboogie,” which he said described a feeling of being so happy that you had to dance. I got nowhere in my brief faray into a Swahili dictionary, so I can’t vouch for the truth of my friend’s quote.
AskNott
"Measure twice, cut once. Dang! Measure again, cut again.
Um, that’s “foray.” Sorry.
–Nott
A clarification:
Describing the Bugis in the past tense was my own sloppiness, and should not be attributed to PBS. Ma’af.
The PBS site does, however, place their pirating ways in the past. While I cannot speak to the Bugis involvement in particular, maps of recent pirate activity show the highest concentration in Indonesian waters.
“The dawn of a new era is felt and not measured.” Walter Lord