When US President Joe Biden addressed Congress and gave his ‘State of the Union’ address he was (at times) greeted by ‘catcalls’. Writing in the Wall Street Journal Daniel Henninger said, ‘The speech’s most publicised moment was the Republican catcalls.’ We know immediately what is meant. The Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives that meaning as, ‘a loud or raucous cry expressing disapproval’. They call this a ‘revised’ definition, since the earlier meaning of the word was somewhat similar to ‘wolf whistle’ – namely, ‘a loud, sexually suggestive call or comment’. The expression has been around since 1660 – originally with an unexpected (for me at least) meaning: a gadget or device for making noise. The Oxford says it was, ‘a squeaking instrument, or kind of whistle, used in play-houses to express impatience or disapprobation’. (That is a rather quaint definition – referring to ‘play-houses’ rather than ‘theatres’!) Nowadays we have the vuvuzela – the noisy plastic horn blasted almost constantly at sporting events. Same idea – a gadget or device to make a loud, irritating sound. That was the original ‘catcall’. And why the name? Well, the Oxford tells me that the earliest of these squeaking, squawking devices made a sound rather like the nocturnal wail of the cat. Then the word came to mean the imitation of this sound with the voice. Which is pretty much what the Republicans were doing to Joe Biden. By the way, the word (and noisemaker) called the ‘vuvuzela’ remains something of a mystery. Some people think it comes from the Zulu word for ‘making noise’. Others say it is African township slang for ‘shower’ because it ‘showers people with noise’. Others believe it means ‘pump up’ (which is what the lungs of the vuvuzela player need to do). For my part, I think ‘vuvuzela’ is a neologism meaning ‘don’t blow that thing anywhere near me!’