More on "gunther" - "gun thug"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 7/14/06, Mircea Sauciuc <msauciuc at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> One suggestion on "your mother's a gunther" was "gun thug."  A search on
> "gun thug" got me thinking on how "your mother's a gunther" was used.
> First, here is something I found through a Google search on "gun thug."
>
> Basil, the head gun thug, put a gun into one of the black miners', Bill
> Worthington's, belly, pushed him into the bushes.
>
> Here is the rap  in context:
>
> just call my name and I'm gonna confroncha-
> youz a lame and yo motha's a guntha
> I'll beat her and puncha
> Leave her bleedin' and punctured
> Nigga I'll take yo newborn daughter and punt-uh
>
> So maybe it's not an insult in the sense that it's something equivalent to
> "your mother's a dumb bitch," but rather she is someone who is supposed to
> be in a position of power but I'll still "beat her down."

I doubt there's any connection to "gun thug" -- "guntha" looks more
like an all-purpose putdown. You can find plenty of examples on
MySpace, where it seems localized to northern New Jersey. For
starters, try:

http://google.com/search?q=+site:myspace.com+guntha|gunthas

A sampling:

---
guntha ass guido bitch lol!! i love yah man!! oh yeah beach tomorrow
G! U 5Uk A55 GUN+hA NiGg@ "trying to wirte like a guntha lol"
---
yo bitch why u be looking like a guntha lol sike nah i love u dan the man
---
naw chill biscuit, yo momma and your cuzin a guntha and your dad is a
guido, but you, you iz wack, you know why? cause u iz a chop.
---
damn yo you stay hatin, thats why you momma guntha, now go cook some
dinner, me and the kids is hungry
---
well anyways, why you always take sooo damn long to respond with your
guntha ass self? dont worry you can ask me what a guntha is if you
dont know, or ask danielle, i explained it to her as well ;
---
naw chill with that shit , yous a guntha and thats it , deal with it ,
yo hoish ass , you cant be a guido like me
---


Surprisingly, "guntha" has not yet generated an urbandictionary.com
entry, but I'm sure there will be one soon.


--Ben Zimmer

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org