Word’s growth bamboozles

LITTLE ROCK — Bamboo has more than 700 species, and even that number falls short of counting all the ways to say bamboo:

Bamboo curtain: the Communist states of east Asia - a Cold War expression, not so much bandied about these days with the Chinese making iPhones.

Bamboo fishing: to fish with a bamboo pole, one of the world’s oldest ways to snag dinner. A bamboo pole is what Mark Twain’s barefoot boy Huckleberry Finn had. But today’s angler can spend hundreds for a fancy bamboo fly rod.

Bamboozle: Meaning to fool or cheat somebody, the word comes from such possible origins as the Scottish word of similar meaning, “bumbaze” (according to dictionary.com), or “booze” as rhymes with “confuse.”

Etymologists - word guys - are basically bumfuzzled on this one, and the true origin of “bamboozled” might be how Tarzan felt when he got lost in the bamboo.