Fangpusen

(The following paragraph alignment anomalies can be blamed on WordPress and not me.  Nothing is ever my fault)

I have a problem. Well that’s not strictly correct if truth be known.
Actually I have many problems, but the most pressing one for the purpose of this story is my older cousin.  She is like a termite gnawing away at the foundations of my tower of integrity. Cousin Elisabeth takes every opportunity to remind my daughter that “Your Dad is a silly old sausage and a very peculiar man”.
 
Now Liz, the dear old character assassin, has only known me since Mother-of-GOF pushed and grunted and popped me out into my awaiting groovy nineteen forty-eight swaddling clothes, so what the hell would she know.

Perhaps one peculiarity to which she refers is my propensity to find amusement in the sight or sound of some words in English or the other languages which I have unsuccessfully attempted to learn during my lifetime.

It all started when I was around seven or eight years of age.
I would cack myself laughing in the back seat of the family Humber Hawk every time we passed the Mobilgas service station at Ravenswood midway between Castlemaine and Bendigo in Victoria.

Mobilgas. 

Well I have to admit it’s not even vaguely funny half a century later.

As we all understand, The Bucket is a serious journal catering to a select group of highly intelligent adults.  Occasionally I choose to provide a paragraph of spurious special information just so the younger readers can copy and paste it into their school assignments.
 
The word mobilgas derives from the ancient Greek mobi (on the run) and gaseon, (flatulence).  Marathon runners encouraged their own mobilgas production through dietary means and then harnessed it to their advantage. By releasing tiny ‘pfffts’ on every other stride, mobilgas provided a propulsive boost to these athletes when they were running up the mountains of Peloponnisos.

Australia no longer has Mobilgas signs.  I miss them.

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Two words from the Kotte language in Papua New Guinea which always caused me to have short-lived spasms of mirth were;

rauckenzepeneng  and  kikefung,

and

Karpapuk  is Melanesian Tok Pisin for ‘fart’.

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The latest addition to my Cackle Dictionary is ‘fangpusen’,
the brand name of the voltage regulator which came with my new solar panel.

      Fangpusen.  Fangpusen.  Fangpusen.     

The word deserves to be widely promulgated and I have taken the liberty of suggesting some possible meanings;

fangpusen;  a snake ready to strike.

fangpusen;  a childs tooth pushing it’s way through the gum.

fangpusen;  a serious infection of the mouth characterised by copious amounts of oozing pungent yellow pus.

fangpusen;  feline front teeth.

Fangpusen;  The German Association of Vampires.

fangpusen;  a kind of sexual misadventure.

Please join my crusade to promote this wonderful word.

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Other electronic equipment brand names around my house are not quite so inspirational.   Some things are best forgotten.

The television set

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