Hyphenated spelling is the official list in most dictionaries. However, since almost all hyphens seem to be replaced at some point, the most common spelling is Poobah. If we had to guess, this is similar to the loss of capitalization and comes from people who learn the term without knowing the historical context. To repeat, the dictionary`s preferred spelling is pooh-bah, not the capital letters. It should also be noted that the term Grand Poobah, in any form, is not listed in the dictionary. In use, the version without a hyphen is more common, but not much. Sometimes it is used in the expression Grand Poobah. Well, sometimes people capitalize on Grand Poobah. We are reluctant to call this a mistake simply because the term is in motion and if the big word makes the term a title, regardless of spelling, then a capital letter would be necessary, even if the term has lost all reference to the original name. Yesterday, bruins Grand Poobah Cam Neely told the Felger and Mazz Show that management certainly looked into the whole Tyler Seguin case and suggested he might have needed a little more support and supervision when he arrived alone in the big city when he was an 18-year-old Canadian child.

[Boston Herald] Video screens convey images related to the narrative: at one point, a crowd of hip-hop fans; to another, the sinister and silly face of Mo` Money (a very funny Jacob Yeh), a Poobah label. [Washington Post] The term is sometimes capitalized because it began as a proper noun. Pooh-Bah comes from an 1885 work of fiction, in which the Great Pooh-Bah behaves in the same way as the definition listed above. In our research, we found that it is usually capitalized when someone refers to the actual character in the play. Most other uses do not retain capital letters, perhaps due to a lack of knowledge of the origin of the term. It`s as lazy and rickety as an old bathtub; and very little – Bah! The original Pooh-Bah was an arrogant and stupid bureaucrat introduced in Gilbert and Sullivan`s 1885 operetta The Mikado. In this series, the character Pooh-Bah, whose title is « Lord High Everything Else », very « humbly » agrees to accept several important government positions (and their salaries) after the resignation of a number of civil servants. He will do anything if the bribe is big enough, and he likes to strut his stuff and show anyone who might be impressed by his size. It didn`t take long for English speakers to adopt Pooh-Bah as a term for someone who holds many positions or a high position, and the word still often carries a touch of pomp. A Pooh-Bah is a person who has a lot of power in government, usually holding several positions or functions at the same time. Sometimes the Bah bear knows that he or she has this power and is pompous or overestimates his or her worth.

A self-important person of high position and great influence. Pooh-Bah is a character in Gilbert and Sullivan`s operetta The Mikado. its title is Lord-High-Everything-Else. When she realized that the metal fence would not give way, she said « Bah-wah » and started in a different direction. Pooh-Bah, a character in Gilbert and Sullivan`s opera The Mikado (1885) entitled Lord-High-Everything-Else He is considered the Great Pooh-Bah of poinsettia culture in Canada. [Toronto Star] Chernon Bah, co-founder of A World at School, was alarmed by what she had recently experienced in Sierra Leone. Nervously, the 6-foot-6-inch player went to Puuh-Bah`s office for the Seattle SuperSonics. [New York Post].