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What is the meaning and origin of the word 'palooza'?

Question #128159. Asked by Otautau.
Last updated Dec 02 2012.
Originally posted Dec 02 2012 1:28 AM.

Related Trivia Topics: World   Linguistics   Vocabulary  
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It is apparently derived from the word lollapalooza. From an entry about a music festival of that name: "The word - sometimes alternatively spelled and pronounced as lollapalootza or lalapaloosa - or "lallapaloosa" (P.G. Wodehouse - "Heart of a Goof") dates from a late 19th/early 20th century American idiomatic phrase meaning "an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance." In time the term also came to refer to a large lollipop. Farrell, searching for a name for his festival, liked the euphonious quality of the now antiquated term upon hearing it in a Three Stooges short film. Paying homage to the term's double meaning, a character in the festival's original logo holds one of the lollipops.

The word has also caused a slang suffix to appear in event-planning circles as well as in news and opinion shows that is used synonymously with other suffixes like "a-go-go", "o-rama", etc. The suffix "(a)palooza" is often used to imply (often in hyperbolic language) that an entire event or crowd was made over that term, e.g.: "Parks"-apalooza, "Gaff"-apalooza, etc."

link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lollapalooza

Dec 02 2012, 3:41 AM
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