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A Yahoo is a legendary being in the novel Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift.
Swift describes the Yahoos as vile and savage creatures, filthy and with unpleasant habits, resembling human beings far too closely for the liking of protagonist Lemuel Gulliver, who finds the calm and rational society of intelligent horses the Houyhnhnms far preferable. The Yahoos are primitive creatures obsessed with "pretty stones" they find by digging in mud, thus representing the distasteful materialism and ignorant elitism Swift encountered in Britain. Hence the term "Yahoo" has become synonymous with "cretin," "dinosaur," and/or "Neanderthal."
It is doubtful that there is any connection with any Hebrew roots as it has been proposed by some. The negative use of the Hebrew name Jehu is due to the actions of this ancient king and never in reference to the original meaning of the name.
American frontiersman Daniel Boone1 claimed that he killed a hairy giant that he called a Yahoo. Boone often used terms from Gulliver's Travels.
Yahoos were referenced in some of letters the killer called "Son of Sam" sent to New York City police in the 1970s.
References
- ^ Did fiction give birth to Bigfoot? by Hugh H. Trotti
See also
- Struldbrug, also from Gulliver's Travels
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 12 November 2008, at 19:57.
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