Pardon my not even attempting to get the spelling right on these. Any language in which cumare comes out sounding like goomah is one whose spelling I don’t even stand a chance of mastering.
The first term I’ve heard only on The Sopranos. It is why-oh, pronounced basically like the first part of Wyoming, and seems to refer to the mobsters speficially. Angie Bompensiero uses it when she says in an episode late in season 3 something along the lines of, “Well, we married these why-ohs.”
The second term I first heard on Car Talk, but have also heard come from the screaming lips of Furio on The Sopranos, after he is shot in the thigh. It sounds like porka meezaylia when Tom and Ray say it.
Any help greatly appreciated. Especially spelling help.
Wasn’t there also a street gang in NYC called the Why-ohs?
The other term is porca miseria, which is literally translated as “pig misery.” My mother says it a lot. It’s a euphemism for the much more offensive porco Dio, which means “pig God.” (Pardon my Italian.)
Also, straight-up Italian is a completely phonetic language. Cumare is pronounced “coo - MAH - reh/ray” (in between the two on the last syllable). It’s because of regional dialects and accents that you get things like “goomah” from cumare.
Neidhart - I grew up in a very ethnic Sicilian family, and I don’t think it’s just the Neapolitans. Who woulda guessed that the word I knew to be pronounced “gollymod” would be spelled “calamari”? For that matter, my mother always says “madron!”… turns out the correct spelling for THAT is “Madonna”.
ftg, that explanation for YO is good enough for me, though it does seem strange to hear corrections officer talk coming from Angie Bompensiero’s mouth.
Hi.
I grew up in Naples, and have lived the last few years in New York. What you describe as “why-oh” is actually from the word “guaglione” (pronounced, oddly enough, why-on, with the n dropping off at the end,) which is Napulitano for boy/guy.
