Roshambo
Fortunately, I have my own theory. It’s not much of a theory, and I have absolutely no evidence for it, so caveat lector. My theory is that “roshambo” has nothing to do with anything Jean-Baptiste Yadda Yadda, Comte de Rochambeau did or did not do regarding RPS. I think it came about because American History courses taught to schoolchildren in the 19th and early 20th centuries almost certainly required them to learn about Jean-Baptiste and to memorize his name. When, during recess, the children then used RPS to settle a dispute, the ornate three-syllable name “Ro-cham-beau” would have been on their little minds and thus a natural for a counting chant during the game. They could as easily have chanted “Wash-ing-ton,” of course, but “Ro-cham-beau” actually sounds like an exotic magic incantation. And “roshambo” is a lot easier to say than “rock-paper-scissors.”
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Wayne Brehaut:
September 7th, 2012 at 6:53 pm
You rock!
Alex Brant-Zawadzki:
October 12th, 2012 at 6:27 pm
Seems logical to me that Rochambeau could take that long to be used enough to designate an arbitrary “first known use”.
You yourself said you hadn’t heard RPS referred to as Ro Sham Bo, and information is a bit more readily available these days.
I’ll bet there were also dozens of colloquialisms/idioms that were deemed too indecent or povertous to print.