hoopla

Did You Know?

In French, the interjection houp-là is used roughly the same way as English's upsy-daisy or whoops-a-daisy, as one might say when picking up a child. (This usage can be found in English, too, in such works as Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons and James Joyce’s Ulysses.) In the early 20th century, the word, playing on the syllable hoop, gave its name to a ring-toss game played at carnivals. But before that, hoopla was used in American English to refer to a kind of bustling commotion, and later, as a term for sensationalist hype.