adjective "Christian"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Thu, 19 May 2005 00:52:15 -0500, Rex W. Stocklin
<stocklin at EARTHLINK.NET> wrote:

>At 4:48 AM -0700 5/17/05, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>
>>What's "bofos" ?  The Firesign Theatre LP was "I Think We're All
>>BOZOS on This Bus" (1971).
>
>buttfuckers, a play on the Firesigner's most choice work.
>
>I have  no etymology, but we used to use it WAY back as early as
>1974, when I was a frosh at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Also
>there's this:
>
><http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bofo&r=f>

Hmm... the similar "bufu" dates to 1982 (in HDAS, also Jesse Sheidlower's
"Revising _The F-Word_" <http://www.verbatimmag.com/f_word.pdf>).  "Bofo"
would seem to be influenced by "mofo", recently discussed here.  So was
"bofo" pronounced like "buh-fuh" at Rose-Hulman, by any chance?  (I'm
guessing not, since the play on "bozo(s)" wouldn't work in that case.)


--Ben Zimmer