Query: alleged word "mingya"

[George Thompson]

Indeed, I had been discussing this word just last week with a friend, and had been intending to post it here.

The friend is 50+, from Lawrence, Mass., and Jewish.  He knew the word from his high school friends.  He and his older brother and sister used to use it, rather in the spirit of showing how the natives back in Lawrence talked.  I haven't heard it since I left Boston and stopped seeing them.

He illustrated the word for my son by saying that it might be said in response to an astonishing bit of news: "Mingya!!" (as Peter Farruggio says, = Wow or Holy shit) or to add emphasis to an expression:"Mingya, will you get moving!"  He regarded the word as a shibboleth of Lawrence, and said that someone he knew said he had once, in passing a group of soldiers in the Nam, overheard one of them say "mingya".  He had immediately stopped and said, "OK, what part of Lawrence do you come from?"

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African
Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.

----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Farruggio <pfarr at UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sunday, January 5, 2003 0:30 am
Subject: Re: Query: alleged word "mingya"

> It comes from a Southern Italian dialect word for "penis"  I guess the
> spelling would be "minghia" (stress on first syllable)  Italian
> Americanshave used it for several generations as a gross expletive
> for "Wow!" or
> "Holy Sh*t!"
>
> Pete Farruggio
>
>
> '
>
> At 05:23 PM 1/4/03, you wrote:
>
> >   A friend sent me a query about an alleged word "mingya." Would
> >anyone have any information about it? The query appears below my
> >signoff.
> >
> >    Also, many thanx for the responses to my earlier queries.
> >
> >Gerald Cohen
> >
> >
> >[Message I received on "mingya"]:
> >
> >>A bookselling colleague raised a question that none of us have been
> >>able to answer. I have checked my etymologies and on-line sites with
> >>no definitive answer. It may be entirely a regional use, but here
> >>goes, in case you or someone else can supply an answer:
> >>
> >>>  i need a definition of the word 'mingya.'
> >>>
> >>>  it's a commonly used expression here in the Merrimack valley
> >>>  and I would like to use it in a newspaper column for the new
> year.>>>  however the editor/publisher has no idea what it means,
> >>>  (not surprising)
> >>>  and we would like to have some inkling.
> >>
> >>Any help appreciated!
> >
> >
> >
> >
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