Tuesday, June 26, 2012

A Youk or a boo?

I wrote about this on the blog long ago: you can't tell fans screaming "Boo!" from fans screaming "Youk!" (the Red Sox cheer for Kevin Youkilis). Both are stretched-out yells -- Yoooooouuuuuuuk and Booooooooooooo -- so you mostly hear the middle, which is identical. Who can tell if it began with a B or a Y or ended with a K? I sure can't.

And now this anomaly has come to haunt Obama. The president was not booed. Here's an excerpt from the linked article (after all the inaccurate ones earlier in the day about Red Sox fans "booing" Obama):
"Anyone who knows Boston, and anyone who was in that room last night knows that the preponderance of people shouting in response to what the president said about Kevin Youkilis were saying 'Yoooouk' and not 'Booo,' for God's sake," Carney said.
And that's the story, folks. It was a Youk, not a boo. Mark that on your scorecards. The crowd was lamenting the loss of one of their favorite players in the only way they knew how: like a herd of lost moose.  "Yooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuk!"

By the way, there was a catchy headline about Youkilis being traded to the White Sox yesterday (at ESPN, as I recall): "Youkilis changes Sox". I liked that.