Talk:¡Ay, caramba!

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Merge[edit]

Oppose as per Simpsons Neologisms talk page.--Anchoress 07:00, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Missing information[edit]

Seems odd that this article doesn't say what "ay, caramba" actually means! It gives etymology and meaning for "ay" and for "caramba", but doesn't actually state a meaning for the phrase as a whole. 86.6.4.136 19:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ditto that.... what does it mean? Sethie 02:17, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Corrections[edit]

Actually, Americans learn most of their few Spanish words and phrases from Mexicans, which are North Americans, not South Americans. So changing "South American Spanish" to "Latin American Spanish" is an attempt to include Mexican Spanish into the picture.

I changed Aye carumba to Eye carumba, because the pronunciation of "aye" is not that obvious for people under a certain level of education, where as the pronunciation of "eye" is. Afterwards I changed "carumba" to "carahmba", since "uh" and "ah" aren't always pronounced the same in every English-Speaking region, and Spanish "a" is closer to "ah" than to "uh". -Carlvincent.

I believe that "I Love Lucy" character Ricky Ricardo (Played by Desi Arnez) popularized the use of the phrase 'ay Carumba' as regular dialog from 1951-1957, That's how long the television show ran.

That phrase became a "kitchen table topic", reflecting The 1950s view of American relationships. There, typically, the husband would find something has has gone awry, and would have some expression of his frustration/surprise due to a situation caused by his wife.  Television in the 1950s would never tolerate cursing, So the Cuban character spoke in his mother tongue 'ay Carumba',  loosely translated as 'Oh heck'. 
The American audience had such a connection with the TV show, it was not surprising that people started saying 'ay Carumba' in public.
I always thought that Bart Simpson got the expression from watching reruns of "I Love Lucy". Drt2boll (talk) 20:52, 9 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

what??[edit]

"ay caramba" does NOT specifically mean disgust... it is rather a generic expression used for any surprise. Here in Mexico it is not used commonly in daily speech because it is often replaced by more vulgar remarks such as "ay, wey!" or "ay, potassio!". Also, "ay" does NOT necessarily denote pain; again, it is used when there is a surprise of any kind, not mattering if there is pain or not. I think this should be changed in the article. BTW I'm in Mexico and I have lived here all my life. Yo sé lo que digo :p —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 189.175.150.23 (talk) 16:28, August 23, 2007 (UTC)

Is it even likely that this expression is derived from the rich history Spain shared with Arab and Jewish culture, where "Abba" (denoting "Father" - used to refer to the Heavenly Father, God, by Catholics) and "Karam" (denoting generous bounty, or something more in excess than expected) could have been used in a combined form? How can we know the likelihood of its actual etymology regarding the past? The simpler answer often fits better, and in this case, I would not find it unusual for the words "ay karam, abba" (in surprise and shock, meaning "oh great, Father" - i.e. "great" in the sense of something unexpected) to have been shortened to "ay karamba" (or "ay caramba"), over time.

Meaning of word - is it vulgar?[edit]

I learned this expression Spanish class decades ago so it is not primarily a Simpsons neologism. It seems to be considered quaint. People often laugh with or at the speaker when one of modest ability in Spanish uses it, which I take to be a recognition that it is archaic, kind of like saying "oh, drat" or "holy moly" or "tarnation" in English. The article claims it is a penis reference but does not say whether it is considered vulgar or taboo. I suspect it is not. Any further sourced information on this would be very interesting for the article. Wikidemo 06:45, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This word is known as vulgar Spanish expression in Hungary. I heard this word before the Simpsons could be seen any of the screens. Some think it is a rude word i Spain. ZJ (talk) 19:52, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Use in ISIRTA[edit]

The word was used on various occasions by John Cleese in I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again the 1960s BBC radio series that led on to things like The Goodies and Monty Python. Cleese would deliver a highly dramatic line completely deadpan, obviously reading it from a script in which he was uninterested, and then add "Caramba" at the end in the same tone to make it exciting. Never failed to get a laugh. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.240.92.135 (talk) 14:41, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect[edit]

Why does Holy Crap! redirect to That '70s Show Episodes? I'm changing it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Stone Cutter (talk • contribs) 20:41, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Simpsons[edit]

"It is commonly misspelled on Simpsons merchandise." - In what way? --TimothyJacobson (talk) 03:13, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As "Ay, Carumba!" I believe. That's what my Simpson's duvet cover had on it! 2.31.164.10 (talk) 11:21, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Redirected[edit]

Since all. other usages are unsupported OR and unsourced for quite some time I'm going to be WP:BOLD and redirect to Bart Simpson which I believe has actually sourced references to the phrase. Nobody seemed interested in fixing this and to trim all the OR information would gut the article down to essentially the same references found in Bart Simpson Cat-five - talk 21:43, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted your page move/redirect, reason being explained to you on your take page. Please do not do this stunt again without gaining a consensus first, thank you. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦1185♪♫™} 14:27, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See my respone here. I won't get into a revert war over it but this is just saving time. Also I resent you're "don't try this stunt again" language, you don't have to agree with my edit but that doesn't give you the right to assume bad faith or personally attack for it. Cat-five - talk 00:03, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please read Wikipedia:Don't assume, thank you. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦1185♪♫™} 06:24, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus to redirect[edit]

I don't remember the exact templates we're supposed to use to mark this on the top of the page (I'll look into that) but I propose that this page be redirected to Bart Simpson. I did this unilaterally as I believed it would be uncontroversial but for reasons I won't speculate on Dave does not believe there is consensus so I am bringing it here to discuss.

I removed all unsourced information from the article per policy which leaves the true content of the article which I do not believe is sufficent to warrant an article specifically for this when it can be covered in the Bart Simpson article. On top of that while it should not be a major factor the first listing for the search time "Ay Caramba" is Wikipedia's Bart Simpson article as can be seen here. Cat-five - talk 00:19, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: 1.) google is just a search tool, we should never use it as a true way to ascertain the popularity of a loan word or phrase; 2.) we can leave out the redirect as the article is quite relevant by itself; 3.) per Wikipedia:Common sense, the popularity of western cowboy matinee shows back in the days of TV/network infancy is something we should keep in mind even before we start to become overzealous in our effort in cleaning up the article from OR/Unsourced. Tag them with a CN tag if you want to but do not remove them, let someone else more experienced fill up the missing pieces for you.

In short, let's not tear down the house just because it is in the process of being build and is still severely lacking in several area. That is all. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦1185♪♫™} 06:50, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for not replying sooner, I'm going to put this article up for a proper AFD, if I were to go through again and remove all the unsourced information that's back in there would not be enough for a legitimate article especially when, as I said before, it's already covered in another article. Cat-five - talk 16:25, 25 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Latest correction[edit]

"caramba" is likely to have come from "carajo," which is indeed vulgar. "Carajo" does not mean anything like "penis." Both words mean approximately "damn it." I have corrected the stub article, replaced the erroneous information and cited a source. Ann Weaver Hart (talk) 16:14, 29 September 2011 (UTC)Ann Weaver Hart[reply]

According to the redirect page "Carajo" means "shit". 2.31.164.10 (talk) 11:22, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Will it never end?[edit]

Remarkable amount of talk for the subject. I gather that the phrase means basically "oh crap!" which is either vulgar or not.

The text says that "carajo" means fuck and includes a citation to this effect. However the word links to a Wiktionary entry that says it means "shit". Unless the sexual habits of North Americans of Hispanic descent are more perverse than advertised this is probably an error either here or in the Wiktionary entry.

Ta-ta (now I wonder what that means?)

Once again suggest a merge[edit]

I would once again suggest a merge. I went through again and removed everything that was unsourced and would have removed Bart Simpson as well for being unsourced if not for having a copy of Planet Simpson handy. There seems to have been little to no progress since the last time this debate came up so despite the objections to moving this article because this article could be improved, nobody was willing to back up their statements with actions. Despite the fact that there are uses outside of the Bart Simpson catchphrase, that is the main use and Wikipedia is not Wiktionary to the fact that without the Bart Simpson catch phrase none of the usages are worthy of their own article on Wikipedia and the catchphrase it's self is unsuitable for an article on Wikipedia. Cat-five t c ----

Not sure why I didn't at the time but since I was going through my old contributions and saw this, I'll note that the above comment was from 31 May 2013 Cat-five t c ---- 02:54, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No explanation for link[edit]

Seems to be that there is no reasonable explanation for how carajo went to be caramba, or even why? Where is the historic source of this occurring? How long has this expression been in use? Was there any influence from other early Spanish cultures and languages not directly lined to Latin? What is the best way to ascertain the reason why people say caramba rather than carajo?

Are there African usages of this word, as with the city in the following link?

http://travelingluck.com/Africa/Central+African+Republic/Central+African+Republic+%28general%29/_2385901_Karamba.html

Simpsons - Spanish version[edit]

I was told Bart doesn't use Ay Caramba in the Spanish version of The Simpsons. Can someone confirm this, and, if true, add to the article as a curiosity? Regards, IP 92.231.216.176 (talk) 15:28, 20 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]