Yo-yos

[doktor at primenet.com]

On NPR's Morning Edition today there was a piece on yo-yos, which are
apparently experiencing a vogue in Japan and Europe.  The reporter
inverviewed a spokesman from the Duncan company, here in Ohio, which makes
most of the yo-yo's sold today.  In the last few years, production has
jumped from having one line going for one shift a day to having three lines
going all three shifts...and they still can't keep up with the demand.

The Duncan representative said that yo-yos were invented in the Philippines
"ten thousand years ago" (a claim which seems suspect, but I'll let it go),
and that the name, yo-yo, comes from a language spoken there and means,
literally, "come-come."

Most interesting (to a Pynhead like me, at least) was the claim that yo-yos
originally were weapons, something like slings.  This is the reverse of the
evolution of Yoyodyne, which went from making kids' toys to making weapons;
yo-yos began as weapons and wound up as kids' toys when Mr. Duncan saw a
Filippino kid playing with one on the streets of LA and got interested in
them.

By far the most popular yo-yo today is the Duncan Imperial.  Hmm.
                                                  /`/`/`/`

This Duncan fellow's other claim to fame is as the inventor of the parking
meter.

My cheesy little American Heritage Dictionary that came bundled with my
computer has this to say on the subject:

yo-yo n., pl. yo-yos.
1. A toy consisting of a flattened spool wound with string that is spun
down from and reeled up to the hand by motions of the wrist.
2. Informal. One that undergoes frequent abrupt shifts or reversals, as of
opinion or emotion; a vacillator.
3. Slang. A person regarded as stupid or objectionable.

-yo-yo intr.v. yo-yoed, yo-yoing, yo-yos. Informal.
To undergo frequent abrupt shifts or reversals, as of opinion or emotion;
vacillate.

Anyone have any more information on the origins of the yo-yo, or how the
word first came to be applied to describe the vacillating and the stupid?

--Jimmy (who has been called a yo-yo on more than one occasion)

  http://www.angelfire.com/oh/Insouciance/