Helen DeWitt writes me as follows:
A reader, Scott Prater, bought me some coffees and wrote me a nice email about my latest book, and he also added the following:
I offer you a linguistic curiosity: the Valencian/Spanish expression, “me la bufa la gamba”. It’s only used in the Valencian region of Spain (the verb “bufar” is Spanish, but it has some additional connotations in Valencian), and its provenance seems to be murky, as is its literal meaning and grammatical construction. It means “I couldn’t care less”, a close relative to the more widespread Spanish “me importa un comino”; one could imagine Rhett Butler, at the end of Gone With the Wind, telling Scarlett O’Hara, “Frankly, my dear, me la bufa la gamba”.
I can’t figure out the role of “la gamba” in the expression, nor what the direct object “la” refers to in “me la bufa”. Does “la” refer to “la gamba”, in which case, who is doing the bufa-ing? Or is “la gamba” the subject of the sentence, and the “la” direct object refers to some (possibly pornographic) entity off-screen, one closely linked to “me”, the indirect object? And why a gamba? I’ve asked my Spanish linguist friends, it makes for great party conversation, but no one has been able to shed any light on either the etymology or the syntax of the expression.
I thought the knowledgeable readers of languagehat might have some ideas (Scott has agreed to my passing this on to you).
So: thoughts?
Apparently related to the Spanish “me la sopla”.
I found this online with some attempts at explaining: https://www.tipografialamoderna.com/alcoyanadas/me-la-bufa/
Lots of explanations and equivalences here.
me la suda
me la bufa que te la bufe
[ Aunque parezca una respuesta tonta del tipo ‘rebota, rebota que en tu culo explota’ o del ‘pos tú más’ de uso tan habitual entre la clase política; el me la bufa que te la bufe tiene su aquel porque plantea la negación de una negación y sitúa a los hablantes en tierra de nadie, en un punto de la conversación rollo gato de Schrödinger.]
Bufa, it says there, is a Catalan word for this.
I would like to add rebota, rebota que en tu culo explota to my stock of disobliging remarks, but it’s a bit too long and I know no one in Cologne who speaks Spanish.
So apparently the base is “me la bufa” and the gamba is an optional added ornament. Also, there was an ’80s group called La Bufa la Gamba Blues Band Orquestra.
Hmm, David’s link is the same as mine. Great minds think alike: just enter “me la bufa la gamba” in Google and that’s the second hit.
Edit: of course even not particularly resourceful people can think alike, so I guess the implication of greatness is a little moot.
Maybe it has something to do with what the adorable cherubs are doing here (the picture at the top of the article).
Stu, the Russian [not sure I should call it a “translation”] is literally “by fools thoughts converge”
@drasvi, the full saying is “Great minds think alike, fools seldom differ”. An oft-heard variant here is zwei Doofe, ein Gedanke.
I’m still not clear about what’s going on with the “la” in “me la bufa” (which was part of his original question) – I would probably understand if my Spanish grammar were better, but my schools in Cali and Guayaquil brought in random members of staff to teach Spanish and their approach was a bit hit-and-miss.
I would have parsed “me bufa la gamba” as [1st P DATIVE] [OPTIONAL: 3rd P GENITIVE] [3rd P PRES] [ARTICLE] [NOUN], where 3rdP PRES and [NOUN] are rude words. An example with the full paradigm is “me ne frega un cazzo’ in Italian. Has anyone seen this in a Romance language grammar?
From the diccionari normatiu valencià:
18.
ser la bufa (de) la gamba loc. verb. No haver-hi, en alguna cosa, en alguna situació, serietat ni orde, ser un desgavell. Si no posem una miqueta d’orde en la reunió, açò serà la bufa la gamba.
19.
ser la bufa del bou loc. verb. Ser, una cosa, de poca entitat o de poc valor
@Helen DeWitt: “I’m still not clear about what’s going on with the “la” in “me la bufa.””
Spanish has a number of idioms with the direct-object pronoun “la” (singular) or “las” (plural) that makes reference to nothing in particular:
3. pron. person. 3.ª pers. f. y n. U. en locuciones verbales y expresiones sin referencia a un sustantivo expreso o sobrentendido. Buena la hemos hecho. Me las pagarás. Pasarlo mal (https://dle.rae.es/lo).
‘Spanish has a number of idioms with the direct-object pronoun “la” (singular) or “las” (plural) that makes reference to nothing in particular:’ Although of course in ‘me la suda’ and similar phrases it does definitely refer to ‘polla’ or (SA) ‘verga’.
(Apologies for my continued inability to produce italics or hyperlinks. Jo.Der 🙁 )
M! Andy! Thank you! If I hadn’t been taught Spanish by the school accountant I might have known this!
In Catalan (and/or Valencian) sources, the expression is mostly quoted as “[ser] la bufa la gamba” and interpreted as a contraction of “ser la bufa de la gamba,” namely being the bufa of the gamba. Not that this helps very much with understanding the origin of expression. Suggestions quickly devolve into what looks like paretymology. See for instance:
https://pccd.dites.cat/p/Ser_la_bufa_la_gamba
https://www.cdlpv.org/fitxes/bufa-de-la-gamba-ser-la/
http://www.avl.gva.es/lexicval/xhtml/dnv.xhtml?paraula=bufan
https://diccionari.llenguavalenciana.com/general/consulta/bufa
On the other hand, Spanish has several of expressions of the form “me la [verb] [something] ” meaning “I couldn’t care less about [something]”. The DRAE has sudársela algo a alguien and the colorful refanfinflársela una cosa o una persona a alguien. Possibly also others I cannot think of looking for.
As Andy already mentioned, the direct-object pronoun is officially just part of the idiom, but unofficially it is easily understood a vulgar reference to the virile member. The DRAE politely labels both expressions as malson. coloq., where malsonante literally translates as “ill-sounding” but actually means “offensive to modesty, good taste, or religiosity.”
I’m tempted to guess the expression started in Valencian as “ser la bufa la gamba” and then turned into “me la bufa la gamba” to mirror Spanish idioms, but then again I may hang out too much with Catalan speakers and Catalan nationalists.
Concluding digression. In Italian, pretty much any direct-object pronoun lacking an immediate referent is easily understood as a vulgar reference. Unlike in Spanish, however, the gender of the pronoun normally matches that of the implied person. I seem to recall references suggesting this was already true for Giacomo Casanova, though I wouldn’t be able to dig them out
But in those idioms you don’t normally get both the object pronoun and an explicit object NP — or do you?
“Ça me fait une belle jambe.”
I love that feature “Diccionari de butxaca” linked to by David and Stu Clayton at the beginning of this thread. I will have to read them all.
The information on la bufa la gamba in that instalment of “Diccionari de butxaca” appears to derive from Josep Tormo Colomina, “Origen dels modismes antroponímics alcoians”, in IV Coŀloqui d’Onomàstica Valenciana i XXI Coŀloqui de la Societat d’Onomàstica, Ontinyent (la Vall d’Albaida) 29 i 30 de setembre i 1 d’octubre de 1995, published as Butlletí Interior de la Societat d’Onomàstica 70–71, Sept.–Dec. 1997. A PDF is available in open access here. Note the following entries on pages 1182 and 1190:
(Click on “Descarrega el PDF” in the upper right hand corner if the PDF doesn’t load.)
Also note the sound and sense of the words bufalaga “farsa, aparença, futilitat” and bufalandanga “pompa, estufera”, in Joaquim Martí Mestre (2011) Diccionari històric del valencià col·loquial: Segles XVII, XVIII i XIX, p. 108, visible here on Google Books, I hope.
Also note this brief earlier treatment of the Valencian phrase la bufa la gamba by Abelard Saragossà Alba in Problemes bàsics de la teoria sintàctica generativista (1957-1986) (1992), p. 238, note 88 (visible here on Google Books, I hope):
Gamba here is ‘shrimp, prawn’, not ‘leg’. But perhaps this explanation of la bufa la gamba is just a folk-etymological rationalization?
So does me la bufa la gamba (the original subject of the post) arise from a contamination of me la bufa with the Valencian idiom la bufa la gamba?
Please excuse any typos and omissions in my comments above. Akismet is not allowing me to edit them.
Stu, i fiddled with Booble (I’m going to call Boogle Gooks so), and found (1640) 1: “We use to say good witts iumpe , though heads touch not”, 2).
Les beaux esprits se rencontrent first appears in 1652, Das französische Sprichwort saget : Les beaux esprits se rencontrent. Then 1694 in two dictionaries (Dictionaire universel, contenant generalement tous les mots françois tant vieux que modernes, et les termes de toutes les sciences & des arts, and Le grand dictionnaire de l’Académie Françoise).
Ca la Gamba va ser una de les cases de xiques [bordellos] més famoses d’Alcoi, a primers de segle. Estava situada en el carrer la Puríssima, prop del Portal de Riquer.
<* titters *>. El carrer la Puríssima !
Here’s the unassuming Portal de Riquer, and the rather more hunky Jugendstil artist Alexandre de Riquer i Ynglada.
@Y what the adorable cherubs are doing here (the picture at the top of the article)
DeepL offers “my leg is pierced”. So yes. (Or at least the not-so-adorable cherub is ‘piercing’ in the ‘upper leg’ region.) But then DeepL is under the impression the phrase is Italian.
Tell DeepL it’s Spanish: “I don’t give a shit about shrimp.” GTranslate detects Spanish: “the shrimp buffs me”.
I think we should adopt “the shrimp buffa me” here at the Hattery as a mild retort to information we’re not interested in.
I think we should adopt “the shrimp buffa me” here at the Hattery as a mild retort to information we’re not interested in.
Enthusiastically endorsed in principle. An alternative would be “buffa me shrimps!”
The punters will take it or leave it. Facetiousness can’t be imposed, unfortunately.
Or course, a shrimp which buffas one Hatter may not necessarily buffa another.
Buffa was a typo. I meant to accept AntC’s GT English translation with buffs.
So “the shrimp buffs me” would mean “the shrimp polishes my knob” ?? That’s Too Much Information, and rude too. I expect Mr. Eddyshaw will back me up on this one.
Hey, everybody, don’t miss Giacomo Ponzetto’s extremely interesting comment up there (June 30, 2023 at 6:47 pm), which I just discovered in the moderation queue and liberated!
Se la bufa la gamba a Akismet.
[Could that be said in all colloquiality ?]
@Stu Clayton:
We should ask a Valencian, but I’m afraid the literal reading of “me la bufa la gamba” (malson. coloq.) is “the shrimp blows me” (vulg. colloq.).
This being Spain, you can easily find a clip of parliamentary debate in which an opposition leader (Pablo Iglesias, Podemos) tells the Prime Minister (Mariano Rajoy, PP): “se la bufa a Ud. el informe de los letrados, Señor [Presidente].” To be fair, he’s clearly making a show of being vulgar and colloquial.
@Giacomo: thanks, I was only in a mild syntactic fret as to whether “a Akismet” is necessary/appropriate to make explicit what the “se” means in “se la bufa”. Your example “se la bufa a Ud.” tells me I was right.
“the shrimp blows me”
But… OK, sure, anything having to do with sex works as an insult, but how did anyone come up with this? If this is a literal shrimp, doesn’t the expression imply a certain meagerness in the speaker?
The shrimp is not literal, and is not being blowed. The blowing is done by an employee of La Gamba cathouse, see above. Whether the blowee (traditionally not an employee of the same établissement) is afflicted by meagerness is not addressed or adumbrated.
Metaphorical shrimps can be really big.
The Giant Brine Shrimp That Ate Salt Lake City.
I heard about that. That’s not a metaphor: it really happened.
There are lots of good recipes (typically east Asian in character) for shrimp and comparably-sized eggplant.
Speaking of whom… I just spent a few days in Catalonia (at a conference). Graffito:
INDEPE-
NDÈNCIA
There was plenty of space to put the second N into the first line. Do you know what happened?
@David Marjanović:
Normative syllable-breaking is of course in-de-pen-dèn-ci-a.
However, independentista is commonly abbreviated as indepe. I’d tend to perceive that as slightly derogatory, but probably that only goes to show how old and stuffy and non-native I am.
Chances are graffiti-writing natives are less familiar than I with normative syllable-breaking and much more familiar than I with common abbreviations, which would naturally yield the outcome you witnessed.
P.S. If you come to Barcelona the next time you’re in Catalonia please let me know!
P.P.S. I fondly recall an Italian edition of Beckett’s Fin de partie—I can’t recall if a book cover or a theater poster—with the typesetting:
In Italian, finale di partita simply means fin de partie, but finale dipartita means literally last farewell and transparently death.
Undoubtedly the Valencian expat community in Australia is responsible for “don’t come the raw prawn with me.”
I will ask when I next visit family in Valencia (though none of them are actual natives, being variously Welsh and Venezuelan and Tinerfeño,)
You and Stephen Maturin FRS would have a lot to talk about.
I immediately read it as parallel to Norw. bryr meg (ikke) fela “(doesn’t) bother(s) me the fiddle”, with the fiddle (I guess) standing in for something worthless or perhaps vulgar. If gamba means shrimp, all the better.
@Trond Engen: I think the Norwegian would only really be parallel if the expression were, “me la bufa la braccio.”
Sorry, I was only using it as the airport for a conference that was in Sabadell this year but is in a different European country every year – it hadn’t been in Spain since 2012, and neither had I.
More common and more straightforward: bryr meg ikke filla “doesn’t bother me a rag”. But my grandma said fela, so that.
I should have guessed what Tinerfeño means, given that I know one Tinerfeña fairly well, and her husband (Madrileño) very well, and that I’ve been in the land of the Tinerfeños many times.
Now that I’m here, let me deviate a bit from the topic. A reasonably common expression in French is “ça coûte la peau des fesses” (prominent at present on account of an advertisement in which a woman places a plastic pair of buttocks on the counter when confronted with a car-repair bill she found absurdly high). It seems to me that there ought to be a similar expression in English, but I can’t think of one. Maybe “that’ll cost you an ear and a nose”.
Something that amused my wife when she came to England was that the secretarial staff belonged to a union called NALGO — not exactly BUTTOCK, which would be NALGA, but close.
We had been planning to go to the annual meeting of the Spanish Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in Zaragoza in September, but the railway companies (SNCF and RENFE) have been having a fight and it has become absurdly difficult to go there by train (as recently as last September it was very easy). So we won’t be going, and I won’t be seeing our friend from Valencia who might have been able to answer the question.
@Athel Cornish-Bowden says
An arm and a leg? I don’t think I’ve ever heard “that’ll cost you an ear and a nose”.
Yeah, I was puzzled by “an ear and a nose” — why that nonexistent expression rather than the usual one?
Or a nominal egg.
What does it mean?
“Sue your ass off”? Also with other verbs, I think.
What does it mean?
From Tenerife.
Oh. Spanish vowel reduction defeats me again!
I was puzzled by “an ear and a nose” — why that nonexistent expression rather than the usual one
Maybe some contamination by “pay through the nose”?