Talk:Fee-fi-fo-fum

Quote to Wayne Shorter composition

A Quote to Wayne Shorter composition "Fee Fi Fo Fum" should be added. --147.88.200.115 (talk) 14:07, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Please consider a reference to Thomas Nashe, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_with_You_to_Saffron-Walden and http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/Nashe/Have_With_You_To_Saffron_Walden.pdf pg 20 O, 'tis a precious apophthegmatical pedant, who will find matter enough to dilate a whole day of the first invention of Fy, fa, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman 18 January 2014 67.252.16.225 (talk) 01:53, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

No evidence at all that it's a pseudo-Latin "minced" version of the F-bomb?

In other words, "Well, f*ck me if I don't smell a f*ckin' Englishman?"

The "focative case" joke in Merry Wives of Windsor clearly shows that Shakespeare wasn't above sneaking in the F-word for laffs. (On the other hand, I know that expressions like "phooey" were imitative of spitting sounds, and not etymologically connected with that "ancient Anglo-Saxonism".) Throbert McGee (talk) 22:13, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Kendrick Lamar's "i" uses fi, fie, fo, fum.

Shouldn't it be added to Modern Use? It's a Grammy-winning song, and therefore notorious — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.236.216.68 (talk) 17:06, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Relation to swedish

Could it also be that Fy Fa ~= Fy Faen (Norwegian) http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/faen akin to Fy Fan (swedish) meaning God damin it.

Onomatopoetic

Could it be that the line fi, fie, fo, fum is a an onomatopoetic description of the sound made when sniffing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.248.177.70 (talk) 01:20, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Uncited material moved here to Talk page

I've moved the following uncited material here until it is cited by a reliable source:

Equivalents in other cultures

The motif of the giant, or the ogre, detecting an odor of a human being, is common in the folktales of many countries, and is generally accompanied by an expression similar to the English interjection. In Russian tales, for example, the monster usually exclaims: "Foo, foo! Russkim dukhnom pakhnet!" ("Fie, fie! There is a Russian smell around!"). In France and other countries, the ogre usually mentions "a Christian smell"; all these expressions referring to "a human being", since the monster belongs to "the other world".

References

@Syrdon:. please don't add uncited material to articles. The Russian thing is from Baba Yaga, not really the same kind of tale. In any case, none of the statements that were added to the article were cited. Softlavender (talk) 03:01, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

@Soflavender:. OK, a 5 second search on Google returns me this for instance. The "Russian thing" is not only about Baba Yaga, but about any folktale monster. The "Christian smell" can be found in tales from Brittany for ex. But I think I'll keep to the French Wikipédia, English being not my mother language. Syrdon (talk) 08:22, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Again, that's from Baba Yaga. Softlavender (talk) 08:25, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

And that ("a Christian smell") is not about Baba Yaga, since Baba Yaga is unknown in Brittany folktales. Syrdon (talk) 09:06, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Here are examples where the "Russian smell" (search for "русским духом") has no link with Baba Yaga:

(an ogre)

(in hell)

(a seven-head dragon)

This all shows that the motif of the English, or Russian, or Christian smell, is independent from the actual character uttering the expression. It may be Baba Yaga, or it may not. The point is that it is uttered by an evil character, a monster. Syrdon (talk) 09:38, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

I get what you're saying, but we need actual reliable secondary sources that substantiate, rather than original research or synthesis. It's a good observation that malevolent supernatural beings mentioning the "smell" of a human occurs in several countries' old fairy tales, but how can we cite it with authoritative or scholarly or secondary sources? Softlavender (talk) 09:42, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

European cremations leave only bone material; about 2.6kg for the average person. Bones are then ground to the consistency of sand so they will fit in an urn. Thus the rhyme may be an equivalent of "ashes to ashes", and food (bread) is grown from the ashes. There was also an academic argument hundreds of years ago about the pronunciation of the Greek letter phi. Americans call it "fee" (the old way) while English academics call it "f-eye".61.69.158.70 (talk) 11:05, 2 October 2018 (UTC)