Bunga bunga

For once the OED has nothing to offer on the word(s) in the news this week -- bunga bunga -- so we will all have to use our imaginations as to what it means. A young Moroccan disco dancer has claimed that dinners held at the private residence of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi ended in bunga bunga sessions.

 

The Telegraph thinks that bunga bunga is either the punchline of a bawdy joke beloved of Berlusconi, or an 'erotic ritual' that the Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi told the Italian PM about. The Irish Examiner says that a bunga-bunga is 'an after-dinner game for one naked man and a bevy of naked young women'.

 

There are only five words beginning 'bunga-' in the OED, but bunga bunga, nor indeed, bunga, isn't one of them. Perhaps there is something about the combination of letters 'bung' that makes this a good start for slang words. There are 52 entries in the OED that begin 'bung' but there are 72 entries in Jonathon Green's Dictionary of Slang that begin with these four letters. Several of the slang entries relate to the sense of bung as a slang word for 'anus' (not mentioned in the OED), several others to things to do with drinking, since a bung is a brewer or publican (the OED has 'bung-ho', a drinking toast) and yet others relate to the sense of bung meaning a bribe or a pickpocket (these senses are in the OED).

 

Bunga bunga is similar in sound to the English words bang and bonk, which, of course, can also mean 'to have sexual intercourse'.

Comments

[Paolo]

The Italian site Il Post quoted the Dreadnought hoax as an alternative origin for the by now notorious expression.

[Paolo]

Here are the links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadnought_hoax

http://www.ilpost.it/2010/10/28/dreadnought-bunga-bunga/

[Virtual Linguist]

Thank you, Paolo. Very interesting.

[Robert Coelen]

Bunga is the indonesian word for flower, the plural version for flower is bunga bunga............I think you can get the picture.......

[Virtual Linguist]

Indeed. Thanks for the information, Robert.