reanalysis of "mondo"

[Wilson Gray]

On Jul 12, 2005, at 12:38 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      reanalysis of "mondo"
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Anu Garg's wordsmith list, <wsmith at wordsmith.org>, just sent out this
> nice example of reanalysis I hadn't thought of:
> =================
> mondo (mon-DO) adjective
>
>     Huge; enormous; ultimate.
>
> adverb
>
>     Extremely, very.
>
> [After 1966 movie Mondo Bizarro (literally "Bizarre World" but
> interpreted
> as "very bizarre"), where mondo is from the 1961 Italian movie Mondo
> Cane

" ... mondo is from the 1961 Italian movie Mondo Cane ..."

Who wrote this? Clarence Majors?

I saw both of these movies. They were worth whatever it cost to see a
movie in those days, but the scene showing the teen-aged Lapp girls
castrating reindeer by literally biting their nuts off could have been
left out. OTOH, I must admit that that scene was quite memorable. I
certainly can't recall anything else from either of these flicks, other
than their titles.

-Wilson

> (A Dog's World) and reinterpreted as an intensifier. More on this
> movie at:
> http://imdb.com/title/tt0188909/ ]
>
>    "As Asia's productivity shakes the world, and as `just in time'
> inventory
>     management keeps rolling along, air cargo has become one mondo
> important
>     gig."
>     Ed Stephens Jr.; Cargo Tells a Story; Saipan Tribune (North Mariana
>     Islands); Jun 3, 2005.
> ==================
> Other than the odd pronunciation guide (does anyone, in either
> English or Italian, really stress "mondo" on the second syllable?),
> this seems right.  "Mondo" provides a really nice example of
> reinterpretation through opacity, like "Wherefore art thou, Romeo?"
> or "chili" or even "bead".  (Sorry if all this is in HDAS; I don't
> have my copy on me.)
>
> Larry
>