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Forty gatis

Posted by ESC on May 25, 2009 at 13:23

In Reply to: Forty gatis posted by R. Berg on May 24, 2009 at 14:28:

: : : : : : 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.

: : : Esther Lewin and Albert E. Lewin, _The Thesaurus of Slang_, list many words under "Thing" and "Apparatus," such as "thingamajig," "whatzis," and "dealie bob," but nothing that looks like "forty gatis" or "ratra freejus." ~rb

: : I wonder if expressions like that derive from "apparatus".

: Brian, a direct "apparatus" derivation seems a stretch to me, but maybe these words were made up with the "-us" ending because it sounds a little like Latin. The resulting creature has a nonsensical head and body and a fancy academic tail. ~rb

Here is another stretch. The only thing close to it in the Dictionary of American Regional Speech, Vol. II, Page 546: foutory/fouty -- something or something worthless or contemptible. Chiefly Scots.

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