'The hoopla will have to wait till June', said an article in the Guardian today (I've paraphrased slightly), talking about Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Interestingly, hoopla with this sense (excited bustle, hullabaloo) is not in the OED, although it is in smaller dictionaries. In the OED hoop-la (with hyphen) is in only with the sense of the ring thrown at fairgrounds.
Hoopla is mostly a North American expression. Admittedly, the OED has lots of American slang in it, so there is no reason why it would exclude hoopla. The main reason, I suspect, is that the OED is such a huge "book" that it takes decades for things to filter through into it, and probably the Hs haven't been edited for decades either.
Some sources say that the 'bustle and commotion' sense of hoopla comes from the French expression houp-là, which is an exhortation to a child or animal to "get up" or "move". The equivalent of houp-là in English is up-a-daisy (or ups-a-daisy, oops-a-daisy, whoopsy-daisy or various other spellings).
What is hoopla mean? what type of expression it is, metaphor or simile or just a cliche?
Posted by: Travel | February 07, 2012 at 02:15 PM
Hoopla is an action word but i think is a part of an expression.
Posted by: What to do in London | February 07, 2012 at 02:16 PM