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Forty gatis

Posted by Brian from Shawnee on May 22, 2009 at 21:16

In Reply to: Forty gatis posted by ESC on May 20, 2009 at 22:36:

: : There is a phrase used in the Tulsa Oklahoma area that is used in place of "thing-a-ma-jig" or watch-a-ma-call-it that I have never heard before. I am thinking it may be from the oil industry maybe. There are men that point to something and say "give me that forty gatis" (spelling?). Has anyone ever heard this "forty gatis" phrase before? If so, where did it come from?

: I haven't found anything like that in my regional slang books. Still looking.

I have a friend who grew up in Newark, New Jersey (born about 1946) who uses a term that sounds like "ratra feedus" or "ratra freejus". I have no idea how to spell it and a Google search of a few permutations turns up nothing. But it sounds a little bit like "forty gatis". At least it has the same number of syllables.

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