Poontang and Tagalog

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>I think that POONTANG is a verb of motion in Tagalog. This is not to say that
>I am proposing an etymology here, though when in graduate school I first
>discovered the Tagalog form I was delighted with fantasies of World War II
>soldiers inventing a new slang term by borrowing while stationed in the
>Phillipines.
>But if there are citations from the 1930s, then we'dhave to push this kind of
>an etymological connection back to the Spanish American War Isoem 40 years
>earlier).

I'm ignorant of Tagalog, but I have looked into this a little.

"Punta" = "go to" apparently can add a ligature to give "puntang". This is
fine phonetically but where's the semantic connection?

There is another candidate, however: Tagalog "puta" (from Spanish) can add
a ligature too, giving "putang". Can we get closer? Maybe. Tagalog also has
an expletive "pun[y]eta[ng]" which I believe is from Spanish "pun~eta" but
which is conflated with "puta" in Tagalog sometimes, at least nowadays.

So here are two very comparable candidate etyma:

French "putain"
Meaning: "prostitute"
Phonetics: maybe plausible, but lacking the first nasal
Route of adoption: plausible (Louisiana French OR US military [France WW I
or Haiti 1915])

Tagalog "putang"
Meaning: "prostitute"
Phonetics: maybe plausible, but lacking the first nasal (BUT some
suggestion of a possible explanation as above)
Route of adoption: plausible (US military, large Philippine presence 1898-1941)

Why choose one over the other? Until some documentary evidence comes in, I
believe the question is open.

There are, I believe, some other possibilities too.

-- Doug Wilson