adjective "Christian"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, 20 May 2005 00:00:11 -0500, Rex W. Stocklin
<stocklin at EARTHLINK.NET> wrote:

>At 4:32 AM -0400 5/19/05, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>
>>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.)
>
>No, they pronounced it as in hobo, or more germane to THAT era, Led
>Zep's ZoSo. ;-) Why, I'm not sure, but I don't think for any pun,
>that was my silly invention upon the CD reissue of the Firesign's
>deep catalog shortly after 9/11. A much needed dose of levity.

Didn't mean to imply that "bofo" was intended as a pun on "bozo", just
that your Firesign pun wouldn't have worked if you pronounced "bofo" as
"buh-fuh".  It was recently suggested here that "mofo" was a cleaned-up
version of "muh-fuh", so I was wondering if an earlier "buh-fuh" could
have given rise to both "bofo" and "bufu".

I notice that searching on <bufu bofo> prompts Google to ask, "Did you
mean: bufo bufo?"  (Which reminds me, didn't the Firesigns have a song
called "Toad Away"?)


--Ben Zimmer