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Creates a second-person singular active imperative verb form from a non-verb.Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.) Pronunciation (This etymology is missing or incomplete.
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Mohamed Hassan Kamil (2015) L’afar: description grammaticale d’une langue couchitique (Djibouti, Erythrée et Ethiopie), Paris: Université Sorbonne Paris Cité (doctoral thesis).Its meaning is very similar to some uses of -y and its use is particularly common where use of -y might cause misunderstanding, as with randy and rando, journey and journo, whiny and wino.
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The suffix is most frequently and widely encountered in Australian English, which has additional uses (such as rego for registration and nasho for national service) that are never or only extremely rarely encountered in other dialects. Especially in American English, some uses of this suffix are understood as dated slang, as with bucko and neato. It sometimes does change the meaning of words, usually by being applied to adjectives to indicate a person with a pronounced trait, as with weirdo ( “ weird person ” ), or to nouns used metonymously to indicate a person with a pronounced connection to the other object, as with wino ( “ poor or vagrant alcoholic ” ). Occasionally, the terminal consonant of the clipped form is doubled for clarity of meaning or pronunciation, as with uggo and doggo. It is often appended to clipped or elided forms of longer words, as with ambo and parmo. o generally does not change the meaning of the word or name but only makes it more colloquial, as with cheapo and Jacko. He gave me a lot of pi-jaw about slacking and then invited me to tea. kid + -o → kiddo ugly + -o → uggoĪdrian thought it worth while to try out his new slang.
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Perhaps from a special use of the interjection O, oh and/or perhaps from o ( “ one ” ), from Middle English o, oo, variant of a, on, oon, an ( “ one ” ). ( UK, General Australian ) IPA ( key): /əʊ/.
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