Fais do-do

A fais do-do is a Cajun dance party; the term originated before World War II.

According to Mark Humphrey, the parties were named for "the gentle command ('go to sleep') young mothers offered bawling infants.

"[1] He quotes early Cajun musician Edwin Duhon of the Hackberry Ramblers: "Do-do" itself is a hypocoristic shortening of the French verb dormir (to sleep), used primarily in speaking to small children.

The phrase is embodied in an old French lullaby, a song sung to children when putting them down for the night.

Joshua Caffery, however, suggests the true derivation is more plausibly the dance call dos à dos (back to back), the do si do call of Anglo-American folk dance; and that sources such as Duhon are merely "repeating the same apocryphal explanation known by almost anyone who lives in Southern Louisiana.