Talk:maypop

summary

macock

    macock theory (earlier comments by —Soap—)

The word maycock appears in some literature from early colonial America as a type of squash. It is possible that this is related to maypop, with perhaps a bowdlerization to get rid of the syllable cock. I read this somewhere, possibly in a paper dictionary .... but I cant find it now. —Soap— 01:19, 17 May 2020 (UTC) e.g. https://mahockney.org/1624/01/01/mahcawq-the-pumpeon-gourd-used-commonly-for-music-by-indians/ .... pumpeon is clearly a variant of pumpion .... and mahcawq is clearly linked to the name Macocks (sic). And maypops grow in the same area of the USA that these settlers were living in. That still requires a change in sense from a big fruit to a little one, however. —Soap— 01:22, 17 May 2020 (UTC) Sorry, I missed this. Essentially the theory I saw is that macock and maypop are the same word, and that both the sense and the pronunciation changed. Googling mahcawq shows a few people saying what Im saying, but not any etymological dictionaries. —Soap— 01:28, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

better

the maracock theory is better than what i wrote above. macock was just a red herring, .... there was probably a period of time when there were two words pronounced "maycock" for two different plants, of which only one of them stuck around, while the other one ended up with the more playful-sounding maypop. —Soap— 14:35, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I added the link to the AHD into the Etymology section. It's all we've got, so far as I know. The other two theories are from Wikipedia, but in a sense each figures into the AHD etymology as well since there are two irregular changes in the form of the word, first from mara- to may (perhaps because of the season of blooming), and then from cock to pop (perhaps because of the sound made). However the first change could be influenced by the unrelated word "macock" as above, and the second could be a euphemism to get rid of the "cock" syllable. —Soap— 02:25, 7 May 2023 (UTC)