I don’t know what it means, I suspect it doesn’t mean anything at all, but I predict this term has some serious legs. It’s already a year old and hasn’t been completely forgotten, which is amazing in itself.

The hyphenated form seems much more common than the non-hyphenated, which I think is a great pity.

Yaka-wow, my friends, yaka-wow.

I guess I just don’t get out much.

Didn’t even know it had been born In this article from the Times a year ago the two journalists claim to have originated it though a typo. They seem to be tootling their own trumpet a little too much and one wonders if it was purely happenstance that it “went viral” because everyone thought “it was cool”. I’d say it was about as cool as my Great Aunt Winifred. Ghastly word.

A scientist is supposed to have unwittingly created it by being misheard, then quoted in print.  The misquote is here:

“It’s not going to destroy the planet but is it going to be a planet worth living in if you have a load of breezy people who go around saying yaka-wow. Is that the society we want?”

According to the reporters involved, transcription error in the above quote rendered “yuck and wow” as “yaka-wow.”

I just pinched myself; yes, I’m awake. 

I don’t know much but I do know, at least, that the scientist’s name is not Mountweazel.  It’s Greenfield.

Nevah hoid of it.

I’ll let you know if it turns up as an overused home run call on ESPN.