di di mau
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.03 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "[Viet Cong guard, to prisoner forced to play Russian roulette:] MAU! MAU! DIDI MAU!"
- "And if a Vietnamese, be it man, woman, or child, refused to di di mau or tried to get away, the authorization was to go ’head and shoot ’em."
- "“[…] No contact with any gooks. They just blew the bridges and di-di mau’d.” Since I knew that di-di means “go,” and that mau means “fast,” I knew that the VC had made themselves scarce."
- ""What part of "Di di Mau" don't you understand, Skinner?""
- "“[…]Di di mau!” which means get moving, and is not very polite. I started to turn away, then I had a good idea that would make everyone happy."
- "Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk): Oh, and point me to your best copier. / Lance (Elisha Yaffe): Best copier? / Jimmy: Yeah, best copier. C'mon, di di mau."
Etymology
Borrowed from Vietnamese đi đi mau (“go quickly!”). Borrowed into English by American military personnel returning from the Vietnam War, as well as by Vietnamese immigrants; popularized by the movie The Deer Hunter. This is an uncommon way to say "Hurry up!" in Vietnamese. The verb đi (“to go”) can be expressed as a command: "Đi đi! One may even express a sense of urgency with the word mau (“fast”): "Đi mau đi! However, Vietnamese speakers tend to use the verbs mau lên, nhanh lên, and vội lên in exactly the way an English speaker would use hurry up.
Usage
Inflected Forms
di-di mau (canonical)