Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 August 21

= August 21 =

Why do Australians say "Coo-ee?"
I have seen several Americans and TV shows wherein Australian characters say "Coo-ee" when they are angry. What is the origin of this convention? Do British people yell this before a fight? Is from Aborigines? Edison (talk) 01:54, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * WP:WHAAOE: See Cooee. -- Jayron 32 02:00, 21 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Nothing to do with anger. Except we get angry when non-Aussies assume we all say this, or that we wear hats with hanging corks (I've never seen one, ever), or similar ridiculous stereotypes.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  02:27, 21 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Jack, we all know you've seen a hanging cowk! μηδείς (talk) 02:46, 21 August 2017 (UTC)


 * The Cork hat has, or at least had a theoretical practical purpose. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:50, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Superseded by the Aussie salute. Incidentally, the article explains why the cork hat is not so necessary these days. Akld guy (talk) 07:30, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It lives on in the Monty Python archives. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:09, 21 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I have heard British people using coo-ee to attract attention from a distance (perhaps a sign of the influence of Australian TV soaps) - but the more traditional call would be yoo-hoo. Wymspen (talk) 09:53, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I believe that it was introduced to Britons by Australian troops attending the 1911 Coronation of King George V. See the headline in The Sun (Sydney) for 23 June 1911.: '"COO-EE." How Australians Greeted the King'. Anyhow, it was well established in the UK by the time of the First World War; Helen Thomas, the wife of English Anglo-Welsh poet Edward Thomas used it when seeing him off to the Western Front (he never returned), a fact commemorated at this 2014 Remembrance service in Glasgow. Not heard much here these days, but it was common enough in my 1960s childhood in London. Alansplodge (talk) 13:09, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * And a reference for UK usage in 1971 is this well-known TV advertisement: "Coo-ee! Mr Shifter!". Alansplodge (talk) 15:45, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It's much older than that in the UK.  J C Hotten, in his 1864 edition of his slang dictionary wrote: "Cooey, the Australian bush-call, now not unfrequently heard in the streets of London."    D b f i r s   17:35, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks User:Dbfirs, here it is (p. 107). I wonder how it got from Australia to London? Alansplodge (talk) 18:57, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for finding the link. The word was common at my end of the country (northern England) in the 1960s too. I don't know how it got to London, but the word was written about in the late 1700s and early 1800s.  John West (writer) in his History of Tasmania wrote: "... they called to each other, from a great distance, by the cooey; a word meaning "come to me." The Sydney blacks modulated this cry, with successive inflexions; the Tasmanian uttered it with less art. It is a sound of great compass. The English, in the bush, adopt it: the first syllable is prolonged; the second is raised to a higher key, and is sharp and abrupt. A female, born on this division of the globe, once stood at the foot of London bridge, and cooeyed for her husband, of whom she had lost sight, and stopped the passengers by the novelty of the sound; which, however, is not unknown in certain neighbourhoods of the metropolis. Some gentlemen, on a visit to a London theatre, to draw the attention of their friends in an opposite box, called out cooey; a voice, in the gallery, answered—"Botany Bay!".   D b f i r s   20:44, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Might be related to "sooey", the pig call: . StuRat (talk) 16:13, 21 August 2017 (UTC)


 * It's used by the children in the Swallows and Amazons books of Arthur Ransome, so generations of (possibly middle-class) British children became familiar with it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.12.69.184 (talk) 18:13, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Set in England in the late 1920s and 1930s, for those unfamiliar. Alansplodge (talk) 18:42, 21 August 2017 (UTC)


 * The quotations in the OED offer answers to both the OP's question about origins and 's questions about transfer to London. Cunningham's Two Years in New South Wales (1827, 2d ed) says the call was used by NSW Aboriginals and emphasizes (as does the OED pronunciation guide) that the coo should be several times longer than the ee, which is "shrill". I'm not clear whether that's quite how it's pronounced now. The next source, West's History of Tasmania (1852), says that the call was used by Aboriginals in both Sydney and Tasmania, and notes in a footnote:
 * "A female, born on this division of the globe, once stood at the foot of London bridge, and cooeyed for her husband, of whom she had lost sight, and stopped the passengers by the novelty of the sound; which, however, is not unknown in certain neighbourhoods of the metropolis. Some gentlemen, on a visit to a London theatre, to draw the attention of their friends in an opposite box, called out cooey; a voice, in the gallery, answered—"Botany Bay!"
 * More romantic readers might like to imagine that West has here recorded the moments when the call passed from the colonial bush to the British capital! Matt's talk 20:04, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Apologies to Matt -- I found the same quote before I saw your addition.   D b f i r s   20:49, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Good find, we should add this to the article... Alansplodge (talk) 20:45, 21 August 2017 (UTC)