Oongots

[Georg Wittig]

What's `Oongots'? The word can be found in the novel "The Bonfire of the
Vanities" by Tom Wolfe. I couldn't find it in any dictionary.

From the context I conclude that it cannot be a name; it must be an exclamation
or something like that. The place in the novel where it occurs is a dialogue

"Oongots, Abe, it's a contract."

(my edition of the book is Picador ISBN 0 330 30660 X, page 461)

From the standpoint of a New Yorker, it could be a slang word or a foreign
word.

There seems to be a phonetic resemblance to the German exclamation `um Gottes
Willen' (for Heaven's sake), but I'm not sure. Could it be Dutch or Irish or
what? Does anyone know?

Thanks in advance,
--
Georg Wittig email:wit...@gmdzi.uucp phone:(+49 2241) 14-2294
German National Research Laboratory for Computer Science (GMD)
P.O. Box 1240 |"Freedom's just another word for noth-
D-5205 St. Augustin 1 (West Germany) | ing left to lose" (K. Kristofferson)

[Joe Lammens]

In article <12...@gmdzi.UUCP> wit...@gmdzi.UUCP (Georg Wittig) writes:
>
>What's `Oongots'? The word can be found in the novel "The Bonfire of the
>Vanities" by Tom Wolfe. I couldn't find it in any dictionary.

>[...]

>There seems to be a phonetic resemblance to the German exclamation `um Gottes
>Willen' (for Heaven's sake), but I'm not sure. Could it be Dutch or Irish or
>what? Does anyone know?

It's not Dutch, that much I can tell you.

Joe Lammens

BITNET: lam...@sunybcs.BITNET Internet: lam...@cs.Buffalo.EDU
UUCP: ...!{watmath,boulder,decvax,rutgers}!sunybcs!lammens

[The Ancient Programmer]

In article <98...@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU| lam...@cs.buffalo.edu (Joe Lammens) writes:
|In article <12...@gmdzi.UUCP| wit...@gmdzi.UUCP (Georg Wittig) writes:
||
||What's `Oongots'? The word can be found in the novel "The Bonfire of the
||Vanities" by Tom Wolfe. I couldn't find it in any dictionary.
||[...]
||There seems to be a phonetic resemblance to the German exclamation `um Gottes
||Willen' (for Heaven's sake), but I'm not sure. Could it be Dutch or Irish or
||what? Does anyone know?
|
|It's not Dutch, that much I can tell you.
|
|Joe Lammens

"Ugats" is an Italian profanity which, according to my friends of Italian
extraction, means something to do with ones testicles. Is there anyone out there
with a profane knowledge of Italian?

INTERNET: abr...@bnlux0.bnl.gov
BITNET: abr...@bnlux0.BITNET
UUCP: ...philabs!sbcs!bnlux0!abrams

[Anthony Stone]

In article <12...@gmdzi.UUCP> Georg Wittig writes:
|What's `Oongots'? The word can be found in the novel "The Bonfire of the
|Vanities" by Tom Wolfe. I couldn't find it in any dictionary.
|
|From the context I conclude that it cannot be a name; it must be an exclamation
|or something like that. The place in the novel where it occurs is a dialogue
|
| "Oongots, Abe, it's a contract."
|

|From the standpoint of a New Yorker, it could be a slang word or a foreign
|word.

I asked around the office about this and drew blank stares from everyone
except our secretary Maria, who is Italian-American. She was shocked.
Apparently "oongots" is an Italian exclamation which means sodomy...

Ever since reading "The Bonfire of the Vanities" I've had the strange feeling
that this city is based on the book rather than the other way around.
--
Anthony Stone NBC Computer Imaging, New York, NY
st...@nbc1.ge.com 212-664-2206

[Shari L. Landes]

In article <17...@nbc1.UUCP> st...@nbc1.ge.com (Anthony Stone) writes:
>In article <12...@gmdzi.UUCP> Georg Wittig writes:
>|What's `Oongots'? The word can be found in the novel "The Bonfire of the
>|Vanities" by Tom Wolfe. I couldn't find it in any dictionary.
>|
>|From the context I conclude that it cannot be a name; it must be an exclamation
>|or something like that. The place in the novel where it occurs is a dialogue
>|
>| "Oongots, Abe, it's a contract."
>|
>|From the standpoint of a New Yorker, it could be a slang word or a foreign
>|word.
>
>I asked around the office about this and drew blank stares from everyone
>except our secretary Maria, who is Italian-American. She was shocked.
>Apparently "oongots" is an Italian exclamation which means sodomy...
>

When I was growing up in Brooklyn, NY, I found that 'ungots' was a
favorite word of the young Italian-American boys around the
neighborhood. I never asked for (and wouldn't think of) a translation
of this epithet, but from the context of their conversations, I
deduced that this meant something like 'up your ---'.

Just an assumption on my part for the translation, but the word
is definitely still popular and still used in New York.

Shari
--
Shari Landes, Dept. of Psych.,Princeton Univ., Green Hall, Princeton NJ 08544
609-452-4663 sh...@confidence.princeton.EDU
"It is nearly an insoluable pancake, a conundrum of inscrutable potentialities,
a snorter."

[John Locke]

In article <12...@gmdzi.UUCP> Georg Wittig writes:
>Apparently "oongots" is an Italian exclamation which means sodomy...

I hope this isn't getting too far afield, but the subject of Italian
oaths has come up...In the movie "The Godfather" (and probably the
book) the son-in-law is beating his wife. He says to her something that
sounds like "ba fangul." She replies "ba fangul you." Anyone know what
that means?

[Prabhu R Nott]

In article <2...@cs.nps.navy.mil> jx...@cs.nps.navy.mil (John Locke) writes:

>I hope this isn't getting too far afield, but the subject of Italian
>oaths has come up...In the movie "The Godfather" (and probably the
>book) the son-in-law is beating his wife. He says to her something that
>sounds like "ba fangul." She replies "ba fangul you." Anyone know what
>that means?

It is pronounced approximately as "vafankulo" and means roughly
"fuck off". At least this is what I as told by a native Italian who
uses it quite often!

Prabhu.