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In 1953, the movie "Mogambo" was released to appreciative audiences. From what is the title derived? Is it a word in an African language? Any ideas?
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#8742
10/23/2000 10:30 AM
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I couldn't find anything in this site that told what you are asking, but you may want to look anyway: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0046085I have this vague idea that Mogambo was the name of the river, or the area.
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#8743
10/23/2000 11:16 AM
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Well, Father Steve, I can't help with the derivation of Mogambo but I can you tell you more than you may want to know about the movie.
It was originally a play by Wilson Collison, "Red Dust", set in a Saigon rubber plantation and filmed under that title in 1932 by Victor Fleming with Clark Gable and Jean Harlow.
In 1953 the original scriptwriter, John Lee Mahin, changed the location to the African veldt where it was filmed by John Ford starring, again, Clark Gable with Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly. The story was also filmed as "Congo Maisie" in 1940.
And the plot? -- take your pick:
The headquarters of a Kenyan white hunter is invaded by an American showgirl and a British archaeologist and his wife, and they all go off on a gorilla hunt. [Halliwell]
The lure of the jungle and romance get a sizzling workout in Mogambo and it's a socko package of entertainment, crammed with sexy two-fisted adventure. [Variety]
Interestingly, it was released without a music score, just 'jungle sounds and native rhythms".
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If "the Mogambo" is a river in Africa, it has escaped the notice of the usual web-based indexes.
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there seems to be a region in Somalia referred to as Mogambo...
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Can’t find it in my Rand McNally. I’ll send off a ? to National Geographic to see if they come up with anything.
We should also consider that it might just be a figment of the writer's imagination....
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I found an outfit called Mogambo Tours in Lanseria, South Africa, and wrote to them to ask how they got their name. A kind fellow named Eric YVER de la BRUCHOLLERIE wrote back to say: "In 1996, we took over a company called AIR MOGAMBO and renamed it as MOGAMBO TOURS. I believe the previous owner did derive the name from the 1953 movie starring Eva Gardner." Rats! Another dead end street.
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#8748
10/24/2000 10:51 AM
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I was wondering if "mogambo" was a mild corruption of something else, so I tried "mugambo". Now, apparently ntanira na mugambo means "circumcision through words" http://fgm.org/chelala.html - which is clearly of no relevance to us at all.  But then there's: http://www.kalinlures.com/mogambo.htmBrrrrr! 
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The latter of these websites -- the one about "lures" -- is unwilling to open. Was there a character missing or out of place?
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Was there a character missing or out of place?
Nope, there were three characters missing - all of them "w"! Oops.
Well spotted, Pa. Sorted now.
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#8751
10/24/2000 10:13 PM
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GOT IT! Mogambo is Swahili for "big gorilla". (And, wouldn't you know, I plugged it into a web dictionary for Swahili and it came up no match!!) Ok, here's how I got this info.-- I called our library's trusty Just Ask line. This is what the lady told me. I daren't take the time to go here myself, so I hope I got this right. Go to http://www.imdb.com. Type in the title of the movie. Go to external links miscellaneous, then classic movies. 'Fraid she lost me after that, but I'm sure you can figure it out.
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Pooh-Bah
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But then there's:
http://www.kalinlures.com/mogambo.htm
Brrrrr!
Enough to put you off your grub, Eh?
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#8753
10/25/2000 12:38 PM
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Enough to put you off your grub, Eh?Burble! Splutter splutter, slap slap! (these are highly appreciative fish noises) 
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Well done, Jackie! Does tsuwm work for your library's Just Ask line, then? Here's the place you end up: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Studio/8255/filmog/film3.htmlMind you, all it says is exactly the same as Jackie's second sentence. Could this be one of those cases where the word doesn't relate exclusively to one situation? e.g: Somebody who speaks Swahili sees a big gorilla coming out of the bushes and screams "Mogambo!!!" - everybody who understands Swahili runs away. A bit further into the jungle, the group sights the grisly remains of a cannibal banquet. "Mogambo!!!" says one Swahili speaker to another, and they make themselves scarce. The sole remaining white man assumes that a big gorilla was responsible for the bloody mess around, and decides he'd better shoot the mogambo when he next gets the chance. And anyway, there's that little space on his mantelpiece, and normal ashtrays are so boring...
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By your theory, then, 'Mogambo' might just mean "Let's get the f@$% out of here!"
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Pooh-Bah
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Reaching far back into the custard of my memory, I recall a book by (I think) R.M.Ballantyne, that fine writer of spiffing yarns, called The Gorilla Hunters which employed the same characters who had appeared in The Coral Island. In this yarn, which upheld all of the undoubted virtues of The British Empire, Gorillas were referred to, familiarly, as "puggies."
Any ideas where this word could have come from?
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Well done, Jackie! Does tsuwm work for your library's Just Ask line, then?
Thank you, dear! I kind of doubt that he does--it's pretty
long distance to the winterlands. 'Sides, it seems that he has several thousand web sites memorized--he IS a just-ask
line! 'Ceptin' he always tells you to "look it up', grumble, mumble...
I don't really mind looking it up--IF I know where to look!
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>Ceptin' he always tells you to "look it up', grumble, mumble... IF I know where to look!
grumble, mumble indeed. let the record show that I have posted more links than a dozen discalced nuns.
::hmmmph::
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grumble, mumble indeed. let the record show that I have posted more links than a dozen discalced nuns.
::hmmmph::Ok, Mr. Grumble  , so I'm lazy! But what does being discalced have to do with posting links, she said with the distinct feeling of walking straight into a trap?
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I cannot find any Swahili word meaning gorilla. I did learn that the Swahili word for monkey is tumbili or tumbiri or kima, and the word for baboon is nyani (and for "big" baboon nyani mkubwa) and the word for Colobus monkey is mbega, and the word for chimp is sokwe, and the word for small black monkey is ngedere ... none of which has jack squat to do with gorillas or mogambo. The time spent was justified entirely by learning that "Wapi choo?" in Swahili means "Where is the bathroom?" Research continues as the hope of success dwindles.
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jack squat to do with gorillas
I rest my case.
"Mogambo" = "Let's get the hell out of here!"
(this translation for under 18s)
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old hand
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I hope you'll credit your co-translator?
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... none of which has jack squat to do with gorillas or mogambo.
Ain't no one never told ya nothin' about it being wrong for to be using double negatives?
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Max says it is "wrong for to be using double negatives."
One assumes this a critique of the construction "jack squat." One assumes that his objection is that "jack" has the same meaning as squat, permitting one to say "He don't know jack" and "He don't know squat" without altering the meaning of either. Not so, learned one. The clause "You don't know jack" is a shortening of "You don't know jack shit" where the last word is omitted for decency's sake. Squat is a colloquial verb meaning "to defecate" and a noun meaning "defecation." Thus, the construction "jack squat" restores the entirety of the clause, using a synonym in the last position. Eh?
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Pooh-Bah
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Oh how good it is to be amongst true intellectuals!
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Agreed. The recent rise in the number of false intellectuals is a cause for great concern.
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tsuwm>more links than a dozen discalced nuns.
jackie>what does being discalced have to do with posting links, she said with the
distinct feeling of walking straight into a trap?
exactly nothing. and don't go walking discalced near any traps.
---
how many posts would Emily Post post
if Emily Post could post posts?!
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Actually it was the use of " none of which" that prompted my jocular correction. I understood the phrase "Jack squat", and greatly appreciated the bowdlerisation. Since it seems that "Jack squat" means basically "nothing" I read the line to say "none of which has nothing to do with ..." I am of course rushing in where angels fear to tread, as my grasp of grammar could most flatteringly be called rudimentary. If I am as mistaken as I expect to be, your occupation, and my Mickey heritage would seem to make mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa doubly apt.
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#8769
10/26/2000 11:28 PM
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The recent rise in the number of false intellectuals
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
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Misereatur vestri omnipotens Deus, et dimissis peccatis, perducat vos ad vitam aeternam. Amen.
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Pooh-Bah
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>Agreed. The recent rise in the number of false intellectuals is a cause for great concern. Which gives the lie to the idea that American's can't do irony! 
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old hand
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Dear Tsuwm,
A question, for once: What would you call a person who walks through a trap without even noticing?
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#8773
10/27/2000 12:00 PM
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a person who walks through a trap...
A Trappist. Or should that be a Jesuit...?
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#8774
10/27/2000 12:27 PM
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What would you call a person who walks through a trap without even noticing?
If he came out unscathed: lucky.
In my case: stupid.
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>A question, for once: What would you call a person who walks through a trap without even noticing?
An extrapolator???
TEd
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>What would you call a person who walks through a trap without even noticing?
contrapuntal
-ron obvious
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ad vitam aeternamFather, I'm impressed  ! Does this mean that you really are as one with your nom de plume? Or just that you have a good memory and/or good reference books to hand?
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please, could you provide a link to good translation software, or a translation for those of use who have forgotten the little latin we learned..
aside from common phrases, (which thankful good dictionaries include) the only latin i know is in responce to
"Gloria in Excelsious Deo" Et in terra pos... and even then i can only sing it!
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You are one up on me of Troy. The only Latin I know is mea culpa, which my Granny (who is quite religious) says in some sort of prayer at Christmas (or maybe it's Easter). We were never taught Latin in school. I'd be interested in a link also. It seems a shame to only know a phrase that means I am guilty (which I am not, it's not me, you can't prove anything, I wasn't even there )
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The only Latin I know is mea culpa,
I'm about the same, although one Latin phrase that really stuck was the motto of the Order of St. John: "pro fide, pro utilitate hominem", which we cadets were taught as "for the faith, for the service of mankind." What always struck me as ironic is that one of my corp's chief instructors was devoutly, passionately, atheist in philosophy. I wish I had asked which "fide" she was serving.
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