Apple #706: Shampoo

I would like you to think about the word "shampoo" for a moment or two.  Say it out loud, slowly.  Sham poo.

This is the stuff we put in our hair?  To clean it?  Oh, I don't want the real poo, only the fake poo will do for me.  Who came up with this word?  Who in their right mind thought this was a good idea?  And why did we all go along with it?

A word-origins mystery in need of a Daily Apple if ever there was one.




Confidently Clean / Sham Poo.  Seems like an oxymoron, doesn't it?
(Photo from somewhere on this page: Aussie Moist Shampoo 13.5 Fl Oz (Pack of 6))

• I blame the Brits.

• The Oxford English Dictionary folks think that shampoo comes from the Hindi word chāmpo (sometimes it's spelled cāmpo, but the c should have a horizontal line above it, which means the c is pronounced ch).

• This Hindi word chāmpo means "to press" as in "to massage."

• The OED further elucidates the definition by giving an obsolete definition "as designating a part of the process of a Turkish bath."

• Because, you know, India, Turkey, same thing.

An Ayurvedic massage today, including knotted towels soaked in a mixture of rice and warm milk. Perhaps this is similar to the original meaning of chāmpo?
(Screenshot from a video showing the entirety of the massage, which begins with a head massage. Warning: once the guy stops talking and the massage starts, it's very hypnotic. From wn.com.)

• Reading the instances when the OED found uses of the word in its earliest appearances, it does look as though a bunch of British guys were referring to a practice that was probably massage -- and misspelling the Hindi word in a phonetic English way.

• The first instance where they found shampoo being used was from 1762, from a text called Voyage of the East Indies (or something like that; there's a lot of abbreviation). The sentence is "Had I not seen several Chinese merchants shampooed before me, I should have been apprehensive of danger."  
• Meaning, I suppose, that if a bunch of Chinese guys get shampooed (or chāmpo-ed) and come through it safely, then it must be safe for the British guy, too.

• One instance in 1813 actually got the spelling closer to the Hindi: "She [a Mahratta wife] first champoes her husband and fans him to repose; she then champoes the horse."
• Ahem.

• This sentence, from 1829, gets very specific, and it's clear that what's meant is massage: "In the East Indies, friction with the hand, or what is called champouing, is generally practiced."

• Or this one, from 1869, also clearly describes massage: "Shampoeing [sic] may be compared to a gentle kneading of the whole person." 

• This, going back in time to 1823, is specific, though racially uncomfortable: "We had long ago seen negroes employed in percussion upon their Barbadean masters, by whom it is termed 'Champooing.'"

• This one, from Jean A. Owen in a book about Hawaii, where he or she is talking about Tahiti, where some Hindi people do live: "In Tahiti, too, a traveler, on entering a house is always given a mat to lie on, and his weary limbs are shampooed whilst food is prepared for him."
• sounds like an especially nice welcome.

"Indian head massage," as practiced by a clinic in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, UK. A depiction of one of the earlier meanings of shampoo?
(Photo from Real Ease in the UK)

• In other instances, from memoirs of travels to the Indies or letters about trips there and things of that nature, it's not entirely clear what's happening during the ch/shampooing, if it's massage or hair-washing, or what.  

• Dickens, from Pickwick Papers: "The other shampoo'ed Mr. Winkle with a heavy clothes-brush."
• seems more likely that he means the massage definition.

• Thackeray, from Vanity Fair: "Pinching the bed-curtains, poking into the feathers, shampooing the mattresses."
• since the other two actions involve manual pressure, probably the shampooing does too, but perhaps washing could also be meant.

• Here's an even more interesting one, from someone named Haliburton (with one el) in 1838: "So our diplomatists shampoo the English, and put 'em to sleep."

Shampooing today
(Photo from eHow)

• But over time, by 1860, the English word came to mean only the massaging of the head & washing the hair.

• "The patient should have . . . the hair cut and shampooed, and the whole body well cleansed with carbolic soap." (1881)

• "Brilliant with gas, and redolent of rich perfume, are the modern shampooing salons." (1881)

• And now, just for funsies, here's one final use of the word "shampoo," submitted without comment:

• "the shampooed body . . . is rubbed all over with a preparation of soap confined in a bag, till he is one mass of lather." (1821)

• oh, wait. I do have a comment. I think that's a lot like what's depicted in that video of Ayurvedic massage.  Seriously.

The next time your shampoo your hair, remember these two things:

1. champou, not shampoo
2. it's as much about the massage as it is about the product.  

I bet you'll enjoy washing your hair more than usual.

Sources

Oxford English Dictionary, The Compact Edition of The Oxford English Dictionary, Complete Text Reproduced Micrographically (in slipcase with reading glass) (v. 1-20)
Online Etymology Dictionary, shampoo
The Word Detective, Shampoo
The Straight Dope, Origin of "shampoo", the word not the practice