"Murphy's Laws" and Polish puns

[Mai Kuha]

Well, this is going to be more impressionistic than accurate, because I
know next to nothing about variation (or anything else) in this attriting
first language of mine, but my sense is that "humahuttaa" for "punch" is a
word you'd only use in joking; I actually can't say whether it's archaic,
or from a rural dialect, or both. It did make the joke funnier, though
(maybe the meaning is better rendered as "I reckon I'll whomp him now").

-Mai

On Tue, 22 Jun 1999, Dennis R. Preston wrote:

> OK Mai. What's the quaint regional twist? After all, this is a dialect
> society list. My Finno-Ugric capacities are limited to my mother tongue.
>
> dInIs
>
> >In my family of origin, we used to joke about the famous Japanese boxer
> >Yokohama Humahuta, which is Finnish (with a quaint regional twist) for
> >"shall I punch [the opponent] now?"
> >
> >-Mai
> >.....................................................
> >Mai Kuha
> >mkuha at indiana.edu
>
> Dennis R. Preston
> Department of Linguistics and Languages
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
> preston at pilot.msu.edu
> Office: (517)353-0740
> Fax: (517)432-2736
>

.....................................................
Mai Kuha
mkuha at indiana.edu