May 21, 2010

My daughters and I have been trying for some time to get the word caboosh into the English language, so far with no success. For the very many of you not familiar with the word, a Caboosh is one of those large, deep, puddles one sees at the side of a road after rain. The Caboosh is an onomatopoeia, named after the satisfying noise produced by driving fast through such puddles.

Yesterday we had great fun plunging Grandad’s 20 year old Peugeot 309 through many Maltese cabooshes and decided it was time to seize the prickly pear by the thorns and take the word global.

It seems appropriate that the first translation should be Maltese as:

1. we are a half-Maltese family
   
2. currently in Malta and
   
3. this blog is named in honour of the Maltese word for hiccups (or hiccoughs if you prefer).

Maltese is a phonetic language, very similar to Arabic but written with English characters and a few extra letters such as ‘ Ħ’ and ‘ż’ to modify the sound of letters.

The standard Maltese spelling for Caboosh is going to be ‘Kagħbux’ which is pronounced almost the same as in English but with a very pleasing glottal stop in the middle.

Take this word, make it your own, use it (on wet days) and let me know of any other translations.

Writing


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