mofo

[Wilson Gray]

On Mar 24, 2005, at 11:53 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: mofo
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>
> On my first day in Tennessee, I went into a Krystal near campus for
> some fast food.  The first utterance I heard spoken by a very
> middle-aged white Tennessean was " [ 'kE:p yI ] ? "
>
> After a repetition or two I eventually discovered this meant "Can I
> help you?"
>
> A week or so ago I was being thwarted once again by the automatic
> checkout machine at the supermarket.  A young black employee
> approached me and clearly inquired
> " [ dI 'mEz @ ] ?"
>
> After a repetition or two I eventually discovered this meant "Did it
> mess up?"
>
> So "muh-fuh" must be out there.  I haven't heard it, but I have heard
> [ 'm@:
>  f@ k@ ] , with reduction to the vanishing point of the secoind
> syllable.

I agree. I've never heard anyone say "muh-fuh" except facetiously. But,
in the course of my life, I've noticed that there are people who speak
seriously in a manner that I had previously considered to be a joke,
such as pronouncing "motherfucker" as "mofo." In like manner, I've
also, upon occasion, had to deal with people who - I know that this
will be hard to believe, but I assure you that it's true, shocking
though it be - thought that there was something odd about my speech.

-Wilson Gray

>
> I've heard "mofo" from white guys only, all of them roughly my age,
> i.e., young enough to have been influenced by the late Hunter S.
> Thompson, but old enough to be offered gratuitous senior discounts at
> places like Krystal.
>
> JL
>
>
> Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: mofo
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>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Clai Rice
>> Subject: mofo
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>> ---------
>>
>> I'm wondering about the word mofo, specifically about the
>> pronunciation.
>> I've always pronounced both vowels as long o (rhymes with "go"), but
>> secretly suspected that this pronunciation was some kind of cleaned
>> up,
>> white man's version of the term. I've certainly never pronounced the
>> source term this way when actually cursing or being cool. OED (and
>> RHDAS) gives Thompson's 1967 _Hell's Angels_ as the first use, "the
>> Mofo
>> Club", but the second citation is "1970 R. D. ABRAHAMS Positively
>> Black
>> vi. 154 Soul is walkin' down the street in a way that says, 'This is
>> me,
>> muh-fuh!'". This indicates to me that orthographic mofo might be a
>> spelling of "muh-fuh". Is the pronunciation of mofo with long o a
>> spelling pronunciation?
>>
>> Clai Rice
>
>
> I've heard it pronounced as "mofo" only by white people. I've always
> used "muthuhfuckuh," myself. "Muh-fuh," in my experience, is used
> only as a joking, hyper-BE pseudo-euphemism. Of course, given that,
> as a board-certified senior citizen and, hence, old-school, things
> may no longer be as I remember them.
>
> -Wilson Gray
>
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