Talk:skosh

I see a total of 13 Google hits when I search for "give a skosh", one of which is this Wiktionary page, so either this isn't written much, or it isn't used much. --Dvortygirl 07:14, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

There are thousands of hits on Google Books for "a skosh" though. Time flies. ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:11, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Etymology

I was very suspicious of the Japanese etymology, considering that the synonym skoosh is listed here as being imitative. However, I checked the OED and they agree with the Japanese, further mentioning that it was US armed forces slang (which goes some way to explaining it). Equinox ◑ 02:52, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

@Equinox:

Regarding skosh itself, the (at least, American) English pronunciation closely matches the mainstream eastern Japanese 少し ([sɨ̥̀ᵝkó̞ꜜɕì̥]), and is basically how I'd expect an English speaker to nativize the term.

FWIW, Merriam-Webster's entry also lists a Japanese origin, and dates the first usage in English to 1952. Presumably this was borrowed alongside terms like honcho and rickshaw.

For skoosh, I note that all the current usexes at English skoosh and citations at Citations:skoosh are quite recent. Without more data, my suspicion is that the "small amount" sense of skoosh may represent a conflation of Japanese-derived skosh and imitative skoosh (which itself seems likely to be a shift from, or otherwise related to, squish and squash).

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:00, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

@Eirikr: All right. Thanks for the response with a clue. Appreciated. Equinox ◑ 01:24, 19 October 2020 (UTC)