your mother's a gunther?

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

Does "Gunther" perhaps appear somewhere in popular culture (e.g. character in a movie) which would have brought it specially to the attention of African-American youth and hence to the rappers? Otherwise, how many rappers are even aware of the German name "Gunther"?
 
Gerald Cohen

________________________________

From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Gordon, Matthew J.
Sent: Thu 7/13/2006 10:27 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: your mother's a gunther?



Couldn't this just be the German(ic) name Gunther? Calling someone's mother a German man's name might be insulting.

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Mircea Sauciuc
Sent: Wed 7/12/2006 11:38 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject:      your mother's a gunther?

Hi,

Listening to a rap battle between some east-coast rappers, I noticed one guy
insult the others mother by calling her a "gun-thu" (the last 'u' would be a
schwa sound).  I assume it would be spelled "gunther," but that produces no
results in the OED or any other dictionary.  I've asked some
African-Americans hoping they'd have a better idea, and they said they've
heard of it before, but are unsure of its meaning.

Any ideas?

-mcs

Mircea C. Sauciuc
Department of Linguistics
University of Kansas

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