bangomen

[Jonathan Lighter]

The English-East Asian pidgin for a man-of-war may have been "war-junk," if
one can believe Petty-Officer George Willis, USN, writing in the 1870s.  It
was English for a flat-bottomed Chinese war vessel.

It may be faux. I do not know. But it sounds OK to me.

But I think Amy has the last word on "bangomen."

JL

On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 12:52 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: bangomen
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > ...
> > In the words of Ambose Bierce:
> >
> >             "Ours is a Christian army"; so he said
> >             A regiment of bangomen who led.
> >             "And ours a Christian navy," added he
> >             Who sailed a thunder-junk upon the sea.
> >
> > A "thunder-junk" is (faux?) Oriental pidgin for "warship," so presumably
> the
> > "bangomen" have something to do with the Far East. The Philippines? ....
> --
>
> "Thunder-junk" is apparently Bierce's own faux-pidgin for "warship". I
> find the word in only two distinct passages by Bierce, but I can't find
> any comparable non-Bierce use of the word. I suspect this is just made
> up to sound ridiculous.
>
> [There are Chinese expressions referring to mines and similar explosives
> which can be naively glossed with "thunder", e.g., "yu-lei" =
> "fish-thunder" = "torpedo", "yu-lei-ting" = "fish-thunder-boat" =
> "torpedo boat", also "shou-lei" = "hand-thunder" = "hand grenade",
> "di-lei" = "ground-thunder" = "landmine", etc. ... no great surprise ...
> but I don't think there's necessarily any connection.]
>
> ['Pidgin' "thunder-boat" = "steamboat" at G. Books seems to have
> occurred in an American Indian context.]
>
> Bierce presented some little fables about imaginary primitive/archaic
> Oriental kings and their military pretensions. See (e.g.) "king of
> Madagao", "king of Bornegascar", "emperor of Bang", "emperor of Boombang".
>
> I suppose "bangoman" by analogy is faux-pidgin for "firearm-carrying
> infantryman", and I suppose the "bango" is just onomatopoeic: the
> bangoman makes 'bang' sounds with his weapon. Again I think this is
> probably just made up by Bierce out of the air.
>
> Perhaps those with bigger databases can do better.
>
> [Another conceivable hypothesis -- which I think seems unlikely although
> it makes a more amusing story: "bango-man" = "dogtag man" = "soldier",
> after "bango" = "numbered dogtag worn by Hawaiian plantation laborer",
> presumably from Japanese "bangou" = "number").]
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>
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