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Wordspotting: mau-mauing

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April 06, 2006, 10:35
shufitz
Wordspotting: mau-mauing
Wordspotting, in today's Wall Street Journal editorials:mau-mau: Informal To attack or denounce vociferously, especially so as to intimidate

The editorial also refers to the Supreme Court Greenhouse effect, which we've previously noted, after reporter Linda Greenhouse.
April 06, 2006, 11:32
arnie
Presumably this comes from the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya in the 1950s?

EDIT: Yes, it does. I should have looked it up! See the Wikipedia entry.


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
April 06, 2006, 12:07
<wordnerd>
quote:
Presumably this comes from the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya in the 1950s?
EDIT: Yes, it does.
Not quite.

The insurrection was in the 1950s, but OED doesn't have it as a verb until 1970, when it was used (and, I presume, was coined) by Tom Wolfe in Radical Chic & Mau-mauing Flak Catchers.
April 07, 2006, 01:33
arnie
quote:
Not quite

Huh? See the Wikipedia link I gave earlier.


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.