Taos Unlimited | Taos A To Z: A Glossary of Terms, Definitions and Descriptions of Everything Taos

Yahoo
Definition: “expressing great joy or excitement, as in ‘Yahoo! We won!’; related to wahooo, yippee, whoopie, and yee-haw.” Origin: “mid-18th century, from the name of an imaginary race of brutish creatures in Jonathan Swift's “Gulliver's Travels” (1726). Commonly connected to: redneck, oaf, clod, and roughneck.” (~Jean)

Sign at Yahoo's corporate office.

A Bit of Yahoo High Tech Trivia: The first successful major internet search engine was “Yahoo!” The story goes that Yahoo! creators, Jerry Yang and David Filo (engineering graduate students at Stanford University), preferred surfing the Web to doing their doctorial research. In 1993, they started “Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web” to keep track of their favorite websites (only several hundred at the time) from a trailer on campus, but the “engine” soon outgrew its home. In early 1995, Marc Andressen, co-founder of Netscape Communications, invited Filo and Yang to move their growing files to the larger computers housed at Netscape, and the fledgling project became “Yahoo!” The name, Yahoo!, purportedly stands for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle," but the duo claim they selected the name because they considered themselves to be yahoos. (~Jean)

Yee-Haw
Definition: “an expression of enthusiasm or exuberance, typically associated with cowboys or rural inhabitants of the Southwestern or Southern areas of the United States.” This expression was widely used to convey excitement in mid-20th century western cowboy movies. I personally use this exclamation at least twice a day to get my dogs worked up for their mealtimes. (~Jean)

Yucca
A tree-like succulent of the lily family, with stiff, pointed leaves and long stems of white or purple bell-like flowers, the yucca is the State Flower of New Mexico. It thrives in the high desserts of the Southwestern United States and Mexico, but can also be found in parts of the Eastern U.S. The yucca has at least 40 species, which include the "joshua tree" and the "soap plant."

The Pueblo Indians of the Southwest have used yucca in many ways for hundreds of years. The most common, is to pound the roots to remove extracts, which are made into shampoo and soap. The Apaches also use yucca leaf fibers to make dental floss and rope. Other tribes used yucca soap to treat dandruff and hair loss. Yucca has also been used for a variety of other non-medical purposes, including the making of clothing and utilitarian items, such as sandals, belts, cloth, baskets, cords, and mats.

The primary medical use of yucca is to treat joint pain and inflammation associated with osteo and rheumatoid arthritis. Many tribes also used sap from the leaves in poultices or baths to treat skin lesions, sprains, inflammation, and bleeding. Teas made from yucca, mixed together with other herbs, are still brewed by folk healers in Northern New Mexico to treat asthma and headaches. Yucca extract is also used to treat many other conditions, including migraine headaches, colitis, ulcers, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Liver, kidney, and gallbladder disorders are also treated with yucca extract. Recently, researchers have found that a compound found in yucca extract inhibits blood clotting. This suggests that yucca extract may be useful in preventing heart attacks and strokes. (~Aimee)

Pictured: The hearty and extremely useful yucca plant