Dr. Barad's recently discontinued thread on female names touched a tickle spot - the nonsensical slang-rhyme of the Goan diaspora. Fiendishly popular with Bombay Goans, it has been sought to be classified as alliterative, when it is in fact known as a reduplicative!
Not to confuse you - we encounter stacks of them in everyday life many of which have entered common usage e.g. namby-pamby, helter-skelter, hocus-pocus, boogie-woogie, hanky-panky, mumbo- jumbo, hoity-toity and Gabe's favourite, artsy-fartsy! The Raj has even given us the evocative hoochie-koochie and hully-gully. Perhaps Pandu Lampiao will elucidate us on some pretty Goan ones? What really tickled me however, was the Goan propensity to form reduplicatives almost exclusively using the "f" letter, which somehow tends to vaguely hint at rude connotations. Again, the Bombay Goan is the past master here, with his mocking of bhaji-faji, dudhi-fu..., etc! At the recent Toronto Convention, I dissolved into hysterics when the chief guest at one function made an off-table quip "canada-fanada"! Nothing surpassed however (I couldn't stop laughing for two days) a Goanetters discussion when an English visitor (I'm sure you can guess who) derisvely referred to the "moderator-foderator" in sarcastic tones! Absolutely priceless, and well worth the price of admission! Would be great to start a collection - Cecil, JoeGoa, Venantius, anybody? Francis. _________________________________________________________________
