The other day me and my friends were at a sporting event and fans started booing. This happened almost instinctively after a bad show of sportsmanship. When did this become common place?
I was considering that the Romans may have been the originators of this, given the gladiator matched etc. But my question goes further than that. Did it originate independently from culture to culture. Or did one culture just spread it to the others it met?
Add-on: does this have any relation to the term, "stage fright?"
Most dictionaries trace the first recorded usage of "boo" in the sense of showing disapproval to the early 19th century. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary,
Booing was common late 19c. among London theater audiences and at British political events; In Italy, Parma opera-goers were notorious boo-birds, but the custom seems to have been little-known in America till c. 1910.
So we know that booing hasn't always been universal, and even today crowds express their disapproval in different ways both within and across cultures, e.g. hissing, jeering, chanting, etc.