आज का शब्द / آج كا شبد / ਅੱਜ ਦਾ ਸ਼ਬਦ

[muckefuck]

गांड़ / گانڙ gaaMR "arse, buttocks" (< Sanskrit गण्डः gaNDah "cheek"; cf. Panjabi ਗੰਡ gaND "idem.")

This is a vulgarity used liberally in the modern Mumbai crime novel I'm reading, so I was more than a little surprised to find not only it in Platts but also a variety of idioms incorporating it. For instance, the worrying गांड़ फटना gaaMR phaaRnaa (lit. "arse tearing") "get into a funk, ge frightened, come under pressure" and the puzzling गांड़-गलत gaaMR galat (lit. "arse-error") "senseless, stupefied". Of course, more literal expressions were there as well, e.g. गांड़मराओ gaaMR-maraao (lit. "arse-strikee") "catamite". (As I told monshu, best not to think too deeply about what Victorian Englishmen would need such vocabulary for.)

More recent idioms incorporating the word include गांड़ मत्ती gaaMR mastee (lit. "arse intoxication") which seems to mean something along the lines of "screwing around" and गांड़ चौड़ी करके घूमना gasaMR chauRee karke ghoomnaa (a vulgar twist on लम्बी चौड़ी हांकना lambee chauRee haMkaa "boast"). But by far the most common derivative in modern use seems to be गांडू gaaNDoo [note the lack of lenition] which originally meant "sodomite" and is now a general term of a abuse, particularly for a weak or timorous man.

Strangely, the word गांड़ isn't in Shabdkosh, but a term of similar meaning is गुदा / گدا / ਗੁਦਾ gudaa "anus" which appears in such phrases as गुदा द्वार / ਗੁਦਾ-ਦੁਆਰ gudaa dwaar "arsehole" (द्वार dwaar "door, entryway") and गुदा मैथुन gudaa maithun "anal sex".

Comments

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about whether this is just me resisting American English again, after I thought I'd reached acceptance, but I still think "no standing" is better, because, like "no smoking," "no spitting" or "give up this seat to an elderly or disabled person," it directly addresses the passenger with a command, while "no standees" is presumably short for "there should be no standees riding on this bus," a normative comment about the bus, and therefore rather indirect. Also, standees is less likely to be ina foreigner's phrasebook.