What's a Stoop?

After my last post, I was asked by a friend to explain what a stoop is. Well, he actually commented on my Facebook status, but this is 2008, so same thing. He's a crazy ninja Scotsman living in Australia, and I didn't think much of it... then I did a little research and found out that the term "stoop" is actually an American English word.

"Stoop" comes from the Dutch for a flight of steps, and in the US it means the steps leading up to a house. Anyone who has seen The Cosby Show, Sex and the City or Sesame Street would know what I am talking about. I happen to have a photo of me and Dana sitting on adjacent stoops here, just to the right.

This reminded me of a very interesting article I read in The New Yorker a few years ago. There's an excerpt here, but thanks to my handy New Yorker hard drive, I was able to reread the entire piece. Absurdly brief summary: Noah Webster was the man behind America's first dictionary, which added numerous commonly used words to relatively "u"-less copy of a British dictionary. This was not well received by the folks on the other side of the pond, but words like "skunk," bureau" and "pecan" were now considered acceptable English in the US.

So it turns out that we Americans are more than capable at inventing new words, not just butchering old ones. OK, maybe we've "borrowed" these words from other languages, such as Native American languages, French & Dutch, but we've given them our own unique spin, and that's what America's all about, right?