{"id":22992,"date":"2023-07-27T12:44:16","date_gmt":"2023-07-27T12:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22992"},"modified":"2023-07-27T12:44:17","modified_gmt":"2023-07-27T12:44:17","slug":"singing-cows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22992","title":{"rendered":"Singing Cows"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What links the word <strong>bazooka<\/strong> with <strong>Roman trumpets<\/strong> and <strong>singing cows<\/strong>? Let\u2019s find out in this blog post.<\/p>\n<p>A <strong>bazooka<\/strong> was originally a primitive type of trombone with wide tubes. During World War II it came to refer to a shoulder-held rocket launcher used as an antitank weapon that was developed at the time, and which resembled the musical instrument. Bazooka has other meanings that we won\u2019t go into here.<\/p>\n<p>Bazooka comes from <strong>bazoo<\/strong>, an old word for a wind instrument (used in the USA and Canada) and a slang word for mouth (in the USA). That probably comes from the Dutch word <strong>bazuin<\/strong> [ba\u02d0\u02c8z\u0153y\u032fn] (a medieval trumpet), from the Middle Dutch <em>basune\/basine<\/em> (a kind of trumpet), from the Old French <em>buisine<\/em> (a type of trumpet used in battle), from the Latin <em>b\u016bcina<\/em> (bugle, curved war trumpet), from <em>b\u014ds\/bovi-<\/em> (cow, bull, steer, ox) and <em>can\u014d<\/em> (I sing, recite, play, sound, blow [a trumpet]) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/bazooka#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/69716881@N02\/14472341416\/in\/photolist-o3SwTS-nNqDHT-ifNt28-ifNWqW-6StqBN\" title=\"Ludovisi Sarcophagus - VI: Bucinator\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/3909\/14472341416_4105c570a9_z.jpg\" alt=\"Ludovisi Sarcophagus - VI: Bucinator\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\"><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The <em>b\u016bcina<\/em> was used in the Roman army to announce night watches, to give orders and to summon soldiers. Someone who played it was known as a <em>buccin\u0101tor<\/em> or <em>b\u016bcin\u0101tor<\/em> [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Buccina\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1IlZgj2FAHA\" title=\"YouTube video player\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Words from the same roots include <strong>buccina<\/strong> (a curved brass instrument used by the Ancient Roman army), <strong>buisine<\/strong> (a medieval wind instrument with a very long, straight and slender body, usually made of metal) and <strong>posaune<\/strong> (an old word for a trombone) in English, <strong>Posaune<\/strong> (trombone) in German, <strong>buse<\/strong> (nozzle, pipe, conduit) in French, <strong>buzina <\/strong> (hunting horn, car horn, spokesperson) in Portuguese, and <strong>bocina<\/strong> (horn, loudspeaker, conch shell) in Spanish [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/bucina#Latin\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, the word <strong>kazoo<\/strong> is possibly based on <strong>bazoo<\/strong>, or is of onomatopoeic origin [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/kazoo\">source<\/a>]. While similar instruments using a membrane, such as the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Eunuch_flute\">eunuch\/onion flute<\/a>, have existed since at least the 16th century, the <strong>kazoo<\/strong> was patented in 1883 by Warren Herbert Frost, an American inventor [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kazoo\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What links the word bazooka with Roman trumpets and singing cows? Let\u2019s find out in this blog post. A bazooka was originally a primitive type of trombone with wide tubes. During World War II it came to refer to a shoulder-held rocket launcher used as an antitank weapon that was developed at the time, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,104,107,111,10,15,182,34,41,64,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dutch","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-language","category-latin","category-middle-dutch-dietsc-duutsch","category-old-french","category-portuguese","category-spanish","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22992"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22998,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22992\/revisions\/22998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}