your mother's a gunther?

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Only "Gunther" I can think of is a nerdy high school student in the
daily newspaper comic strip "Luann".

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Cohen, Gerald Leonard
> Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 3:43 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: your mother's a gunther?
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at UMR.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: your mother's a gunther?
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------
>
> 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"?
> =20
> 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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