Handicapping the Next Big Battle

[heathernmoore]

No: HPFGUIDX 31779

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "heathernmoore" <heathernmoore at y...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "grey_wolf_c" <greywolf1 at j...> wrote:


> > 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". 
> 
>  World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996-. All rights 
> reserved.
> Page created 20 January 2001.



 


 HMMMM... come to think of it, that actually says that "mundungus" is 
an old ENGLISH slang word, doesn't it? I just fixated on "Spanish" in 
the first paragraph.