I’ve been using the term “brouhaha” — sometimes in public — for decades, since I was introduced to it by the Firesign Theater’s “The Further Adventures of Nick Danger, Third Eye” skit. It means kerfuffle, dust-up, clamor, contentious confusion, hubbub (bub).
So today I happened to run across this article by Marc Tracy, indicating that, well, the word has a less-than-savory origin. Maybe.
I received a lovely email recently from one Bonny Fetterman. “I wonder if you are aware of the etymology of the word ‘brouhaha’ because if you were, you probably wouldn’t have used it in this title,” she wrote (I had typed it in reference to, of all things, the ADL). She continued, citing her high school teacher: “It was an anti-Semitic term in France, based on the words of Hebrew prayer, ‘Baruch atah … ’ which sounded like a confused mess to Frenchmen passing synagogues and came to signify a loud, confused mess.” Wait, really?
[…] Ms. Fetterman pointed me to Merriam-Webster, which reports, “etymologists have connected the French derivation to that frequently recited Hebrew phrase, distorted to something like ‘brouhaha’ by worshippers whose knowledge of Hebrew was limited. Thus, once out of the synagogue, the word first meant ‘a noisy confusion of sound’—a sense that was later extended to refer to any tumultuous and confused situation.”
[…] According to Ms. Fetterman, “I bristle every time I hear the term,” and so out of respect to her and other linguists among our readers, we will try to refrain from using it.
Huh.
Now, I have no desire to cause “bristling,” or to perpetuate “an anti-Semetic term.”
On the other hand … is this really a … brouhaha?
Let’s look at that etymology again.
The Online Etymology Dictionary says: 1890, from Fr. brouhaha (1550s), said by Gamillscheg to have been, in medieval theater, “the cry of the devil disguised as clergy.” Perhaps from Heb. barukh habba’ “blessed be the one who comes,” used on public occasions (cf. Psalm 118). Word Detective gives a similar origin. As does Wiktionary and the Merriam-Webster Word of the Day. World-Wide Words mentions the origin, but entertains copious doubts.
The reason for all the “perhaps” and doubt is that the word may simply be onomatopoeic (which, I will have you know, I just typed correctly without spell-checking). (WWW also offers an alternative that it’s associated with bull-fighting.)
That said, none of these cases seem particularly negative. That 16th Century (or earlier) French didn’t understand a Hebrew prayer, and distored it to mean, in general, a “noisy confusion” isn’t altogether surprising. Nor does it seem (to me) particularly perjorative, any more than hocus-pocus or bedlam are anti-Christian, or that barbarian is anti-Persian.
If it’s true that it was used in Medieval theater in a negative fashion (the cry of the devil “Brouhaha!” — or, perhaps, “Brou, ha, ha!”) that’s problematic — but it’s certainly not a meaning that anyone uses today (when it means much more its original “hubbub” origin). Does that mean it shouldn’t be used? Should we drop “Hip, hip, hooray!” for a (possible) similarly dark origin?
One might argue that if someone takes offense, then regardless of the reason, good or bad, that offense should be taken into consideration and avoided. There’s something to say for that (especially from the HR Department), but that’s also the same sort of logic that takes us into controversies over the term niggardly.
With all due respect to Mr Tracy and Ms Fetterman, I have to disagree with dropping use of brouhaha. It’s a fine word with a commonly accepted and useful meaning, whose past associations are innocent at best and wholly obsolete at worst. I am unconvinced that I shouldn’t be using it, or that there are a significant number of people to whom it is offensive, and so I intend to continue its use here at DDtB.