Handicapping the Next Big Battle

Mon Dec 17 21:43:02 UTC 2001

No: HPFGUIDX 31777

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "grey_wolf_c" <greywolf1 at j...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "heathernmoore" <heathernmoore at y...> 
wrote:
> 
> >  I'm suspecting that Mundungus Fletcher is going to end up 
playing 
> > for the other team. Arthur Weasley has already had difficulties 
with 
> > him, and his name is rather uninspiring:  "Mundungus" being a 
slang 
> > word for garbage(?) in Spanish, and "Fletcher" being the surname 
of 
> > the man who slandered Captain Bligh and fomented the mutiny on 
the 
> > Bounty.
> > 
> >  -- Heather (uma)
> 
> I'm Spanish, and I've never heard that word. Sorry! Maybe it's some 
> sort of slang in some other language though. However, I've never 
heard 
> of it.
> 
> Grey Wolf

WEIRD WORDS SECTION 

MUNDUNGUS
Rubbish; refuse.

The Spanish have a perfectly respectable word mondongo for the 
tripes, the stomach linings of cows or oxen that are served as food. 
Many people adore tripe, especially served with onions, but others 
find it mildly repulsive. Hence our slang use of tripe for worthless 
stuff or rubbish. The English borrowed the Spanish word in the 
seventeenth century, at first with the same sense , but then hacked 
it about a bit to fit English mouths and applied it figuratively to 
any offal or refuse. 
Later, it was used in particular for a foul-smelling form of cheap 
tobacco. In his Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon, published in 1755, 
Henry Fielding wrote: "It was in truth no other than a tobacco of the 
mundungus species". It has largely gone out of use, except when an 
author is attempting to reinforce an historical period, as Patrick 
O'Brian does in HMS Surprise: "If you have finished, Stephen, pray 
smoke away. I am sure you bought some of your best mundungus in 
Mahon". 