Talk:boo-boo

I'd really like to know the origin of this term. Many dictionaries vary in their opinions of it. Some, for instance, state that its root is "Boo-Hoo" while Encarta stangely links it to "mid 50's - appearently 'boob'," which doesn't seem to make any sense. --216.45.139.148 01:30, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The sense it makes depends on your dialect. In America, a boob is an imcompetent idiot, but in England it’s a blunder. The American word "boob" acquired the meaning of foolish mistake across the pond by 1934, and 20 years later the booboo was hatched. —Stephen 01:39, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

RFV discussion: February–March 2021
Rfv-sense Outside of my experience as a native English speaker --Geographyinitiative (talk) 21:04, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
 * cited. One quote from a book and two from Reddit. The book quote is a tiny bit ambiguous since Google Books only gives a limited preview of a little over two sentences, but I think it's pretty clear. Interestingly, when I searched for 'boo-booed', only a minority of results were for the defecation sense. More common were the senses "to make a mistake", and "to experience a minor injury", which we don't currently document. Colin M (talk) 01:50, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Well I have learned something today I guess. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 02:31, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Is this regional? --Geographyinitiative (talk) 02:32, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I believe that most of the time it's "made a boo-boo" or "did a boo-boo" rather than using it as a verb. The quotes are adults alluding to childish usage and are probably completely unrepresentative. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:43, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Sure, I mean it's going to be hard to get much representative data on the language of young children because their use of language is rarely recorded in durable media. Though here's an article I stumbled on that seems to quote a young child using verbal boo-boo:
 * "Another 3-year-old boy in foster care told Swanson that Bennett 'whipped' the alleged beating victim because he 'boo-booed' in his pants in the tree house."
 * Colin M (talk) 05:30, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Not cited: Reddit is not durably archived. J3133 (talk) 05:56, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * IMO we need to start looking at how to allow Internet content, even if not "durably archived", per recent BP discussion, while avoiding extreme ephemera or the sort of random made-up crap that plagues the likes of UD. Mihia (talk) 23:42, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * says who? How is it any different from quoting a newsgroup or mailing list? Colin M (talk) 03:01, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * If you have been here since June 2020 you should know we do not accept quotations from Reddit (and Tumblr, Twitter, etc.; e.g., see Talk:dorkface, Requests for verification/Non-English). J3133 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I think that's kinda harsh - Colin M doesn't seem to've been continually active since joining, but even if they were, it's possible to do a quite a bit of editing here without needing to have much awareness of the rules as long as you're working within the right areas. A approach like yours isn't conducive to keeping Wiktionary thriving. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 10:49, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I did not mean it to be harsh—it was surprising—and I do not see how my message is “a [sic] approach”—also there are too many people here who do not comprehend Wiktionary’s practices—nor are you contributing to the thriving by begrumbling (to use a recently discussed term). J3133 (talk) 11:19, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * My view is that as long as contributors do good work and aren't disruptive, it doesn't matter if they aren't aware of every little aspect of the rules; Matthew 7:16 and all that. If we castigate people too much for not being aware of the rules, then we end up coming off as a cruel, forbidding bureaucracy - hardly what will attract new users. I do think me saying this is indirectly helping Wiktionary thrive: having "too many people who do not comprehend Wiktionary's practices" has resulted in Wiktionary growing year after year while other Wikimedia projects are stagnating. That stagnation, IMHO, is in part due to the aforementioned overly puritanical approach. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 03:05, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't see anything in WT:ATTEST that would preclude Reddit from being considered "durably archived"; citing Reddit seems entirely within the letter and the spirit of CFI. It seems like you're saying that there's a longstanding community consensus against quoting (post-usenet) social media even though it's not codified in policy, and I can accept that that seems to be mostly true, though your second link features impassioned support for quoting Twitter/Reddit, and this recent BP thread also demonstrates a wide spectrum of opinions in the community around quoting social media, so it hardly seems like a closed issue. Also, we apparently currently have 89 entries that cite or otherwise link to twitter. af is a nice example in that it quotes and links to a Tweet while also linking to an archive.org backup of the tweet, so that even if the author deletes it in the future, it will remain accessible. Colin M (talk) 22:20, 19 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I added two more book cites. – Einstein2 (talk) 15:16, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

RFV-passed Kiwima (talk) 01:15, 9 March 2021 (UTC)