# MAD words

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-words/304599>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [May 19, 2005, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-words/304599 "2005-05-19T16:20:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-words/304599/21 "2005-05-21T04:23:52Z")

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It’s **potrzebie.** It’s Polish for need, want, desolation, or “the lurch” (what you get left in). How it got into MAD I haven’t the faintest idea. Occasional references were made to a “bouncing potrzebie,” which I always assumed was close kin to Silly Putty.

**Halavah** is probably _halvah_, the sesame-based confection a k a Turkish delight.

An **axolotl** is a kind of salamander, as shown in the illustration to the poem _I Wandered Lonely As A Clod_.

**Moxie** , of course, is New England’s traditional “nerve tonic.”

Anybody remember **Kleftnobulism**? It turned up in the course syllabus of Alfred E. Neuman University, circa 1959 if I’m not mistaken.

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**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-words/304599/22 "2005-05-21T05:30:01Z")

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Nuclear bombs would go **FAGROON!**. That was always my favourite.

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**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-words/304599/23 "2005-05-21T05:46:20Z")

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Ah, the sounds of Don Martin. Nothing like 'em.

Although Al Jaffee was no slouch at representing noises with letters himself.

**THUP! THUP! THUP! THUP!** : car flattening turtles swarming the road during mating season

**ZZZNKZBK SNUGERNT BLITNGGG** : one mutha of a loud snore

**- PUK -** : ring coming off a pull-tab can without opening the tab (the expression on the guy’s face would have broken your heart)

and the absolutely masterful depiction of coins falling down the guts of a vending machine:  
**TINKA  
TINKA  
TOONGA  
GURK!**

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**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-words/304599/24 "2005-05-21T06:37:29Z")

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> [@williamweigand](#):
>
> \<nitpick of my own\> It’s spelled “furschlugginer” and was once defined as “what you use to schluggin your fur”. 🙂

Well, as [this article](http://shakti.trincoll.edu/~mendele/vol05/vol05.075) states, the MAD parody of _Batman Forever_ was called “Batman Fershlugginer”, with this particular “f-word” spelled the way I remember reading it in numerous issues of the magazine and compilation paperbacks. However, the next sentence gives “knocked around” (I always interpreted it as “doscombobulated” – close enough) as the definition of “f **u** rshlugginer”, which is either a typo or the essayist’s preferred version of the word. I guess different spellings prevailed in different areas of Europe, and later among different Jewish families in the USA.

**Beware of Doug** : Polish contributed a lot of words to Yiddish (as did German), so it’s not surprising that the Jewish members of the “usual gang of idiots” (Gaines, Jaffee, Berg, _et alii_) were aware of “potrzebie” and popularized it among their Gentile colleagues and the magazine’s readers.

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