bang-utot

Benjamin Zimmer bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU
Thu Aug 20 02:23:02 UTC 2009


On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 5:56 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Not in OED though famed in literature.  Tagalog _bangungot_ ('lethal
> nightmare') appears to be the effective etymon, _Naked Lunch_ the linguistic
> vector:.

Don't know where Burroughs was getting his information from.
_Bangungot_ is said to derive from Tagalog _bangon_ 'to rise' and
_ungol_ 'to moan'. _Bang-utot_ doesn't mean anything... though _utot_
means 'fart'.


--Ben Zimmer

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list