hubba-hubba

[Lynne Murphy]

Robert Kelly said:
> when I was took a term of Chinese in the 1950s, the tutor, from
> Shanghai, used hao bu hao (lit. good not good) exactly as an ordinary
> how-are-you greeting`  -- so it might serve as hubba hubba origin -- but
> hubba is a very strange vocalic reading of the hao of hao bu hao (how
> boo how or something like it, how boo, how 'bout that, etc,. you'd
> expect)

The intonational character of 'hao bu hao' is really different from
hubba-hubba, though.  When I've heard it, the _bu_ is pretty salient, but
in _hubba-hubba_, it's the "hu" that get the stresses.

I have no idea whether that would make much of an etymological case
against it, though.
Lynne