Scotty you are my favorite paisan with a post like this. Very timely on 9/11 to bring it back home and yes my grandfather was found of proclaiming "madone" which sounded like "marone" to me as a child. When my father brought me and my polish friends down to the Feast of St. Cosmo & St. Damian it was the first time I heard my grandmother call someone a "medigan"- and I knew exactly what she was saying.
This was lovely! My Italian immigrant grandfather had one which he used as an expletive: madone. Don’t know the etymology but always thought it was an abbreviation of Madonna! In moment of even more intense surprise, it would be shorted to a sharp, “Ma!!” Or “muh!”, the effect was biting off “Donna” before she escaped his mouth. Whether the use of Mardone was part of a longer expression, like “Madonna protect us !” Or “Madonna wears army boots!” I cannot say.
Scotty you are my favorite paisan with a post like this. Very timely on 9/11 to bring it back home and yes my grandfather was found of proclaiming "madone" which sounded like "marone" to me as a child. When my father brought me and my polish friends down to the Feast of St. Cosmo & St. Damian it was the first time I heard my grandmother call someone a "medigan"- and I knew exactly what she was saying.
This was lovely! My Italian immigrant grandfather had one which he used as an expletive: madone. Don’t know the etymology but always thought it was an abbreviation of Madonna! In moment of even more intense surprise, it would be shorted to a sharp, “Ma!!” Or “muh!”, the effect was biting off “Donna” before she escaped his mouth. Whether the use of Mardone was part of a longer expression, like “Madonna protect us !” Or “Madonna wears army boots!” I cannot say.