Make a little hoopla if you picked A! "Hoopla" comes to us from "houp-la," a French interjection that is used to express surprise or to signal another person. Other English nouns that likely have their origins in interjections include the word "lullaby." Its two parts – "lulla" and "bye" -- are thought to trace back to Middle English interjections used to lull a child, which means to cause the child to sleep or rest. And word scholars think "hullabaloo," meaning "uproar, din," may come from the Scottish word "balloo," an interjection used to hush children.