I'll take Merriam-Webster's word over yours. Thanks, though, random Internet poster.
There may or may not be a Yiddish or Hebrew word that sounds like "yahoo" that gets your little panties all in a bunch. That doesn't mean that the English word yahoo is offensive. For example, the English word "see" doesn't mean "yes" just because "si" in Spanish means "yes". The word "yahoo", in English, first appeared in 1726. Period.
Your using the example of the English word "see" and the Spanish word "si" just demonstrate your ignorance of proper transliteration.
Those are common words, not names. You are talking about TRANSLATION, when I am talking about TRANSliterATION.
The offensive term "yahoos", comes specifically from A NAME, one of the most ancient names in man's history. And that is simply a historical fact, whether you believe in a higher power or the Judeo-Christian Bible and their version of the most high power or not, it does not change the fact that it is one of the most ancient names in mankind's history.
Words and their meanings are TRANSLATED into other languages are rarely sound the same from language to languate.
Names are TRANSliterATED into other languages and for the most part, the intention is to replicate the same sound as closely as possible.
Watch a news show in any language on earth, and if you watch long enough, you will recognize the names of popular people who you know, such as Michael Jackson or Prince or Benjamin Netanyahu or Margaret Thatcher or Barak Obama or Donald Trump.
People in other languages do not change the sound of names, if they did, no one would know who they are talking about.
The majority of the scholarly world, if not all of the scholarly world, acknowledges that the English rendering of the most Holy Name of The Almighty in the Judeo-Christian scriptures, is most accurately rendered in English as "Yahweh". This is the exact way it is rendered in the Jerusalem Bible, a Roman Catholic English version that was in popular use just a few decades ago.
In modern Bible versions with notes at the bottom or sides of the pages, you can usually find a note at Exodus 3:!4 expressing exactly what I am saying, that the name given to Moses by the Creator at the burning bush and that was used in the Ten Commandments, is rendered "Yahweh" in English.
It comes from the 4 letters in Hebrew that in English are represented by the Y-H-W-H. It is called the Tetragrammaton by some. Those 4 letters could be found inscribed upon the mitre of the High Priest of the Jerusalem temple.
It is the name that many of the most orthodox Jews, if not all Jews, consider SO SACRED, that they refuse to even utter the name. They instead replace it with the names Hashem, which means, "The Name", or Adonai, which means "Lord".
The letter W, is pronounced Double U, for the express reason that it represents the sound uu/oo.
The four letters all have vowel sounds in Hebrew, which makes the name easily pronounceable in any language on earth. The 4 letters have the sounds "Ee-ah-oo-ay" something the uninformed scholars who mostly only knew greek that came up with the name "Jehovah" didn't realize. They mistook the 4 letters to be consonants that were missing the vowel sounds, so they inserted the vowel sounds from the name Adonai, and came up with the Frankenstein of a word "Jehovah".
The name Yahweh or its shortened versions of Yahoo and Yah can be found all throughout scripture, such as
Hallelu-jah, with the jah pronounced as yah, since there was never the letter J in the Hebrew language or the Greek or Roman languages either.
And modern names such as Benjamin Netan-YAHU, pronounced YAHOO.
The name of the Messiah, as rendered in the modern English as Jesus, is nothing but a modern mistransliteration, as it was rendered in Hebrew exactly the same as the name rendered Joshua was, but was changed to Jesus for reasons beyond the scope of correct transliteration, probably done purposely to set the Messiah apart and give him his own unique name, in an effort to highlight his divinity over his humanity that the rendering Joshua would have highlighted.
And since there wasn't a letter J in Hebrew or Greek, the pronounciation and most accurate transliteration of the name Joshua, would be
Yahshua or Yahushua. Ee-ah-oo-shu-ah, Yahu-shua
The Messiah's name honored the Heavenly Father's name.
It was Israelite's way of honoring their creator, by honoring his most holy name in the names of their children.
Eli-YAHU or Elijah.
Yerem-YAHU or Jerimiah
And the name is NOT translated from language to language, it is transliterated, so in whatever language, proper transliteration seeks out the letters that give the reader in that language the direction to pronounce the name as closely as it is pronounced in the original language.
So no matter what language, the Judeo-Christian Creator's name is pronounced "Ee-ah-oo-ayy" (my computer wouldn't let me spell the sound ay , it turns it into at for some reason? but it only needs one y.
Btw, the 2nd Commandment expressly states to honor His name.
Maybe you are a non-believing heathen, or just an atheist or an agnostic and that is your right as an American, and you have the right to go around calling people Yahoos if you so desire, but at the same time, with rights, come responsibilities and consequences and sometimes laws are created that basically put some people's rights not to be harmed over the rights of other people to freely say or do as they wish, when those freedoms are deemed to bring harm to others.
You do not have the right to sexually harass people. When I was in the Army, it was against army regulations to use the "N" word. I know because I took issue when a black soldier seemed to feel comfortable constantly using the word in my presence. I understand that out in the world rappers use the word regularly and are not prosecuted, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that no one is forced to buy their cds or listen to their music on the radio. But my guess is you would find yourself suffering some kind of punishment if you went around the University of Minnesota campus calling people the n word or if you called any nationality by some offensive name/word/label.
And calling people Yahoos is an offensive derogatory term, whether the people using the term understand its true origins or not, especially when the offended party DOES take offense to it and DOES understand its true origins. Which I do and you obviously didn't.
Even the band U2 knows the name of the Judeo-Christian Creator, they wrote a song named Yahweh.
If in 1726 someone in America, out of ignorance STOLE the name Yahoo, that doesn't give them the right to change the meaning of the name, or that it is and has been a name, possibly the oldest name ever in all of mankind's history.
NAMES are not supposed to change. To change a name or its meaning is dishonorable and dishonest and offensive.
