Who gave our balloon 'thing' its name?

[LondonLarry]

Re: Who gave our balloon 'thing' its name?

Buster Bill, interesting; most interesting. I'm British and to me the word loon was always used in a pejorative manner. Loon was often a shortenend form of 'loonatic' or nutter. Someone who is not right in the head, at school you would hold your finger to the side of your head (about where the temple is) and move your finger in a clockwise motion whilst telling someone they were a loon/loony/loonatic.

I've never heard a British person refer to a balloon as a loon, if you've watched the video's then I am sure you are correct; it is however; something I've not experienced. The only thing I hate in shortening the word balloon is when girls in England, depending where they are from call them 'bloons', they drop the 'a'. Thanks for the heads up BusterBill.

[Chip67]

Re: Who gave our balloon 'thing' its name?

Hi SusieDK, Thank you for posing your question. I am not sure of it's origin, but my journey started when I was about 8 in 1964 way before the internet. Then I found the Balloon Buddies - (Buster Bill and then MikeD) and found out "I was not alone back" in 1997. Also had some good chats on #balloon on Mirc (Internet Relay Chat) interface around the same time. It probably came around the mid to late 90's when these descriptive terms appear. A lot of great memories and friends since getting online. Happy Inflations !!!!

[BusterBill]

Re: Who gave our balloon 'thing' its name?

Isn't the original meaning a TANGIBLE thing - such as a ceremonial artifact...maybe like a voodoo doll, or a replica of Jesus, or a menorah? Often something used in a religious context of some kind?

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You are totally correct, Frank.

A fetish, prior to the invention of sociology and psychology in the late 19th century, was used to define a totem or icon -- such as a cross or other religious object -- which had special spiritual meaning. In that context, a fetish was usually believed to have magical or spiritual powers

The first known use of the word fetish in a sexual context was in 1887 by Alfred Binet, a French psychologist and early student of human sexuality. Binet was especially interested in why some people were sexually aroused by inanimate objects. He proposed a theory that those individuals became extremely attached in early childhood to particular objects, leading to adult sexual fetishm. As a side note, most of us have probably heard of Binet because he co-invented the first practical IQ test, the famous Stanford=Binet IQ test.

Psychologists and sociologists who came after Binet in the early 20th century (such as Hirschfeld and Freud) used the term "fetish" to define sexual arousal not only from inanimate objects, but also from some particular feature of the human body. Some fetishes mentioned in early psychological literature are foot fetish, ear lobe fetish, amputee fetish, lingerie fetish and shoe fetish.

The existence of sexual fetishes was very well known and the term fetish in a sexual context was part of everyday vocabulary from the 1920's onward.
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[BusterBill]

Re: Who gave our balloon 'thing' its name?

Buster Bill, interesting; most interesting. I'm British and to me the word loon was always used in a pejorative manner. Loon was often a shortenend form of 'loonatic' or nutter. Someone who is not right in the head, at school you would hold your finger to the side of your head (about where the temple is) and move your finger in a clockwise motion whilst telling someone they were a loon/loony/loonatic.

I've never heard a British person refer to a balloon as a loon, if you've watched the video's then I am sure you are correct; it is however; something I've not experienced. The only thing I hate in shortening the word balloon is when girls in England, depending where they are from call them 'bloons', they drop the 'a'. Thanks for the heads up BusterBill.

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I am fascinated by your comments Larry. I'm sure that in the UK, as everywhere in the world, there are many regionalisms in the use of language.

I first encountered the use of the term "loon" being used in forum posts by a few of our first UK Balloon Buddies. Hearing it in old post-WW2 movies came much later. I imagine that where you grew up in the UK the term loon, taken to mean "not right in the head", was a regional definition. For what it's worth, I grew up in rural New York state where loon/loony meant the same thing to me as it did to you.

It was much later that I stumbled across the old British films which began appearing here as American TV switched over to cable and became so overpopulated by the sheer number of channels that they started filling up late night air time with vintage black-and-white foreign movies. It was in some of those movies where the term "loon" was used to refer to a toy balloon. For some reason there is one Agatha Christie movie in particular where the phrase "Please, mummy, may I have the red loon?" sticks in my head -- I have no idea why that has stuck with me all these years.
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[tebe2hu]

Re: Who gave our balloon 'thing' its name?

However one day I was searching the internet for a place to buy balloons, because our local party supply shop had closed down, and I stumbled upon Buster Bills site.

I still remember the words on the entrance page: 'Bet you thought you were the only one!'. Trembling all over I entered the site and read each and every little bit of information there. I was no longer alone with my balloon 'thing' It is near to impossible to put into writing what huge relief I felt, but it is not needed either, as very many here has been through exactly the same process of finding out they weren't 'the only one'.

Hi Susie,
Almost exactly the same happened to me. The difference that first I met Luna at Lunaworld and then I followed her to Emmasballoons and Sexxyballoonbabe.

We made friends and when we chatted sometimes, we discussed this 'little balloon thing' - she used this expression. She also asked me "You thought you were the only one who obsessed with balloons, didn't you".
I had quite hard times then and when we chatted in text or vocal she managed to cheer me up very quickly. I loved these sessions and till I live, all my life I'll be grateful to this adorable sexy woman for helping me over these difficulties.

Next I met Maya, another extremely kind lovely girl. The topics and the vocabulary repeated, she giggled hearing that I also had thought I was the only one...

Back to the original topic - no one could say exactly, where these expressions came from. But we liked them and took up using them. It's so simple.