BS: Bah! Humbuggers!

Subject: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 10:52 AM

I apologize to the UK-ers to whom
bugger is a fairly serious naughty word.

I didn't come up with this one myself,
I literally just overheard it.

Vacationing in Arizona and in the hotel lobby,
heard two fellow USA-ers, both adult males,
discussing people who were absent, as one does.
One qualified, to the other, a group of people, saying,
"they, you know, they're not 'Bah Humbuggers' ... "

I know my Christmas Carol, so
it was easy to guess what was implied.

Just wanted to share it with you,
whether you need it or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: DMcG
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 11:11 AM

One time on the last workday before Christmas I bought a large jar of humbugs and went round the building offering them to people. No one showed any sign of recognising the joke.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Charmion
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 11:12 AM

"Bugger" is fairly serious in Canada, too, but that would not stop me from using "humbugger". Thank you, keberoxu. That's a good word for an irritating class of person, and I can use it in company where "fucking jerk" would not be acceptable.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 11:32 AM

Pardon me keboroxu, have you ever been buggered?
Or merely suffered a pain in the ass?

"perhaps it does not mean what you think it means"
Princess Bride"

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: terrier
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 11:39 AM

I thought a Humbugger was a certain electric guitar pickup that didn't work ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Senoufou
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 11:52 AM

While I realise the meaning of the verb 'to bugger' is rude, we use the word quite readily here in Norfolk. One can say, "He's a toit owl bugger!" or "Bugger that fer a game o' soldiers!" or, "Bugger me! Oi nivver knew that!" etc.
Far more acceptable than the 'f' word!

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 01:02 PM

"...bugger is a fairly serious naughty word..."

Is it buggery.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 01:18 PM

I thought it became colloquilized after WWI
but buggery was originally sodomy
I'll pay you Tuesday for a humbugger today

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 01:58 PM

You could say
"Bah-Humbuggers"
if you wanted to be really specific.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 04:07 PM

DMcG, a thoroughly Yankee question for you:

how are humbugs different than gobstoppers?

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 04:37 PM

I've had two utterly full-on days and I slept badly last night. I'm completely buggered.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Senoufou
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 05:12 PM

Humbugs are usually tetrahedral in shape, stripey and mint-flavoured.

Gobstoppers are/were spherical and layered with different colours. We used to take them out of our mouths regularly to see what colour they'd become. They really were large and one could choke on a gobstopper. I'm not sure one can buy them these days.

We often say, "Bugger off!" if something is irritating. And if surprised, one can say, "Well, bugger me sideways!"

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 06:13 PM

This song was the first time I heard "bugger" on the radio - early 1960s, New Zealand national radio (probably the YA network).

Poor Bugger Me

It was more surprising that they allowed political content like that on the air than that they tolerated "bugger".

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 07:24 PM

I remember Raggytash exclaiming here several years ago, after reading something or other that had taken him aback, "Well bugger me sideways with a burnt chip." And Stephen Fry has been known to exclaim "Well bugger me sideways with a bent banana..."

"Well I'll be buggered" is a common exclamation of incredulousness. A good answer is "Perhaps later..."

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: rich-joy
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 07:57 PM

Jack, Ted Egan's "Poor Bugger Me, Gurindji" (aka Gurindji Blues) with Vincent Lingiari - and later, also with Galarrwuy Yunupingu, was often featured on ABC radio in Perth during my formative years - very important part of my upbringing and of course, West Australian history.

Here is the 1971 version with Galarrwuy (and Ted and Vincent) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afcVpLbDaVs

Cheers,
R-J

PS    "Well I'll be buggered!" is still an exclamation of astonishment heard in Oz!! (but mostly from Boomers and older :)

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 08:12 PM

They are better than being gob smacked.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 08:26 PM

Well I'll go to t'foot of our stair...

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: meself
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 08:47 PM

I don't think most people would, in an innocuous context, automatically connect the made-up term 'bah-humbugger(s)' with the term 'bugger'. Would they?

Btw, I don't think the term 'bugger' is used much in Canada these days. When I was a kid, it was not unusual as an obscene insult (e.g., 'stupid bugger'); never in polite company.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Dec 19 - 05:27 AM

Terry Pratchett described his early-onset Alzheimer's as an embuggerance. When I heard about it I thought to myself "Buggeration..."

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Dec 19 - 12:23 PM

Anybody remember the Humbug from The Phantom Tollbooth?

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Dec 19 - 01:27 PM

I'll have to go pull the book from the shelf - so many puns to keep track of!

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Helen
Date: 07 Dec 19 - 02:02 PM

I would count myself as a Hum-Bugger, and only a couple of days ago I wore my Christmas t-shirt. I usually avoid movie-branded clothing but this one has a very large picture of a green Grinch sitting on a red chair with the caption "Merry Whatever" below it.

There are so many bugger-related expressions in Oz that I wouldn't know where to start, but it includes most of the ones already quoted here.

When I was still working I emailed myself a copy of our session tunes list so that I could print out the page at work because our home printer was playing up. Working for a state government department meant not being able to write rude words in emails, but I didn't realise that the system also scanned attached documents until the email was blocked and I was given a system warning in full nanny-state, pursed lips, bureaucratic style.

I was confused until I looked through the list of over a hundred tunes and found this one:

God Bless You and Bugger Me

I promptly changed the word "bugger" to "bu66er", sent the email and then changed the word back before printing it at work.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Charmion
Date: 07 Dec 19 - 02:46 PM

Oh, Helen, you made me larf.

I used to work in the Public Affairs directorate of the Department of National Defence, which has a famously twitchy firewall with the sensitivities of a latter-day Anthony Comstock.

I honestly thought I was due a visit from the Military Police when my terminal abruptly seized up and presented me with a red-flag obscenity warning about a document I was trying to email to Combat Camera. What was the document, you ask? It was the captions for a series of photos taken at the unveiling of the Aboriginal Veterans' Monument, featuring as many First Nations leaders as could be rounded up. The firewall had choked on ... wait for it ... the name of Matthew Coon Come, Grand Chief of the Cree nation.

The meatheads never did show up. Sigh.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Helen
Date: 07 Dec 19 - 02:56 PM

That's funny, Charmion. We had a colleague whose married surname was Coon. I had never heard it before. The marriage had long been dissolved and she changed her name back to her maiden name.

If you lived in Oz and could be "buggered" to answer your landline every time it rings, you would be regularly threatened to be arrested by the federal police due to an unpaid debt to the tax office, but by sending iTunes cards or bitcoins, you could avoid that distressing scenario. Spammers and scammers. It helps having caller ID on the phone. I rarely answer the landline these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 07 Dec 19 - 08:37 PM

To qualify as an obscenity, the word would need to be "humbuggerer" instead of just "humbugger". A humbuggerer would be someone who buggers hums. I'm not sure exactly how one would go about buggering a hum, but I'm sure a truly dedicated buggerer could find a way.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Dec 19 - 08:57 PM

What if you like hugging bums?

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Helen
Date: 07 Dec 19 - 09:52 PM

Q: Do you like the smell of mothballs?
A: Yes
Q:How do you get their tiny legs apart?

Sorry. This party is going downhill. I'll get my coat.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: keberoxu
Date: 07 Dec 19 - 11:28 PM

... you already know that the answer to the question is
bumhuggers, you do, you do.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Dec 19 - 05:18 AM

I was talking about cuddly bottoms as opposed to tramps, to be clear. I too can drive this party even further downhill...

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Senoufou
Date: 08 Dec 19 - 05:46 AM

Cuddly bottom is my speciality Steve. Very huggable, if rather capacious.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 08 Dec 19 - 11:35 AM

Wychwood Brewery do a very nice seasonal ale called "Bah Humbug". I've had their tee-shirt for this beer for several years. It's lasted well because I only wear it in December.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Dec 19 - 01:39 PM

I have a Doom Bar tee-shirt from the year the brewery sponsored the Boat Race. I must have had it for over ten years. Still in good nick. I rarely wear it because it flatters not my spreading belly. Not a good look, I find...

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Dec 19 - 02:55 PM

Just opened my 3rd can of Doom Bar, Steve. Very nice it is too.

I do need to point out two things

1. I keep reading the title of this thread as bad hamburgers and
2. Bugger is one of those words than can be modified as a pronoun, noun, adverb and verb. As in the buggering bugger's buggering buggered.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Joe_F
Date: 08 Dec 19 - 06:24 PM

In the US, "bugger" is a mere counter word and not naughty at all. Only the educated know the connection with sodomy. I have hears one working-class man tell another that his 4-year-old by was "a cute little bugger".

Bee-Dubya-Ell is mistaken; there is no need to add another "-er" to turn the verb into a noun; indeed, the noun sense is the original one. It got its start as a corruption of "Bulgar"; it seems that some Bulgarians were heretics in an era when heretics were routinely accused of buggery.

As a sometime bugger & bear admirer, I would be happy if P. Ellis wanted to bugger me.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Dec 19 - 07:40 PM

Well, as huge numbers of both gay and heterosexual couples regard anal sex as perfectly normal, I don't see what's particularly "naughty" about it meself!

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Dec 19 - 09:35 AM

Senoufou, I read that as Capricious.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Dec 19 - 11:56 AM

Hahahaa Mrrzy! Maybe when I try to dance the Mapouka! (wobbles about a bit)

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Dec 19 - 09:09 AM

Dave the Gnome:
Bugger is one of those words than can be modified as a pronoun, noun, adverb and verb. As in the buggering bugger's buggering buggered.
That sentence seems to be using it as adjective, noun, adverb, verb.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Joe_F
Date: 11 Dec 19 - 06:08 PM

For grammatical agility, I have always admired the following line from one version of "The Tinker":
"For the heat of the fucking fucking fucking decomposed his arse."
Adjective, noun, and adverb without a break -- and in the wild, not a made-up example.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Dec 19 - 06:38 PM

Sodom, for tomorrow we die...

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Dec 19 - 10:22 AM

Probably Nigel but who gives a bugger.

Subject: RE: BS: Bah! Humbuggers!
From: keberoxu
Date: 28 Dec 19 - 01:33 PM

refresh