Bada-Bing, Bada-Boom

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, forget about it. Hey, Martha and Grant, the radio show host.

This is Thomas Corbetto calling from right outside the Bronx, New York.

All right, we’re right outside the Bronx, New York.

We’re actually White Plains, New York.

Oh, White Plains, yeah.

Yeah, I used to take the train up to Poughkeepsie all the time.

Oh, really? Yeah, that’s right up there on the beautiful Hudson River, up the river from the city, yes.

What’s on your mind, Thomas?

Well, I thought I’d start this off kind of comfortable with the whole forget about it. But, you know, it’s kind of the same way that I would be speaking, you know, to my cousins at a family get-together.

You know, I’m this good Italian boy from northern Sardinia. Love my heritage. But unfortunately, when my family came to America and we settled there right next to the good old Bronx, my family, my grandparents specifically, told their children to forget Italian and to speak English.

Oh, that old story. What a sad story it is, too.

It sure is. And it seems to be a common theme among Italian families, during that time anyway, when there wasn’t much tolerance for cultures and ethnicities and so forth.

So I don’t speak much Italian at all. But when my Italian friends and family get together, when we’re together, I speak a completely different dialect than I’m speaking with you right now.

Yeah, it’s like basically we reinvent the English language to suit our robust and colorful culture. You know, I must say that when I’m speaking in this way, though, you know, I feel completely comfortable. And it’s almost like a euphoria. It makes me feel like I belong to something special.

Yes. There we go. Absolutely.

You know, you guys should have heard the restaurant that I was in, you know, when Italy won the World Cup. You know, forget about it.

Yeah. Forget about it. Crazy place. Absolutely.

So anyway, you know, I do have a question for you two goombas, all right?

Oh, there was a question.

Oh, wait. We’re honorary goombas. How about that? See that?

Well, you know, it’s a goomba, you’re a friend, you’re a friend. You know, it’s a friend that’s not connected, right? A good person.

Okay. So, you know, it’s this thing of ours, you know, that these two phrases that, you know, I want to get out is, number one, it’s forget about it. Of course, we’ve heard that a million times.

Sure. And also, bada bing, bada boom. Bada bing, bada boom. Bada bing, bada boom. It just happens like that.

So, you know, where do these tasty phrases originate, firstly? And possibly how many issues can we address with each one of them? And finally, is this just a New York and northern Jersey phenomenon, or do these colorful phrases find their way into Italian-American vocabulary all over the country?

Wow. Holy moly, you’ve asked for a dissertation. I think I could do a whole semester’s course on this topic.

Forget about it. Forget about it. Not even think about it. I’ll tell you something. I’ll tell you something right now.

Forget about it. We can take care of that one really quickly. That’s not specific to Italian-Americans. There are a lot of Italian-Americans that use it. It is often used by Italian-Americans in TV and film, but it’s specific to New York.

And these kind of mushed together words were recorded as far back as the 1930s by field workers for the Works Progress Administration. They have this whole list of stuff. Some of them are kind of joking, not authentic, but this idea that we talk fast in New York and we lose the space between our words so that sentences become single words, it’s been chrono-led for, what is that, 80 years now. It’s really kind of incredible.

Wow, that is awesome. So forget about it. It actually isn’t on the list that I know from the 1930s, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it dates to about that part, all right?

So in any case, what’s really interesting is that when you go look at the movies, popular culture, television, like, say, the books by Mario Puzo or Nicholas Pelleggi, or the movies, you know, Goodfellas, Godfathers, Casino, that sort of thing, you’ll find that they used this kind of language that these two authors, Puzo and Pelleggi, took out of their life in New York City in the 1930s.

And they made it seem like everybody was using that language. But yet it really only belonged to them and their people. You know what I’m saying, Thomas?

Sure. And so they started using it and saying, well, this language belongs, and everyone else outside just assumed that all Italian-Americans use that language. And so you’ll find these words and these sayings just kind of spreading that way. It’s really interesting.

So you’re saying that Italian-Americans are picking up expressions like that from literature?

Yeah, yeah. It’s a weird self-reinforcing loop where these small little bits of language that really only belong to a small group of Italian-Americans actually are made bigger by popular culture. And other Italian-Americans may even very well pick them up the same way that any normal American would because they sound interesting. They’re kind of cool.

Well, bada bing, bada boom. Just to close, though, I do want to talk about bada bing for just a second.

Sure. There’s actually, when we say bada bing, bada boom, most Americans picked it up from Sonny in the movie Godfather, right?

Yeah. Most of us didn’t even know it. I’m not even sure that it was in the original book that Puzo wrote. I don’t know. I’ve written a little bit about this, but I didn’t look that up.

I’ll tell you, though, it’s actually two separate phrases that have come together in that phrase.

Really? Yeah. Bada bing is one, and bada boom is another. And they kind of go together, and they serve the same purpose. But bada bing, we can chase to 1972. But bada boom, we can chase to 1957. And they are both distinctly Italian-American.

Wow. That’s amazing. And is it what I think it is? Like bada bing, it just happened? Like it just appeared in front of me?

Yeah, it’s kind of like, think about a gunshot, or think about a riff on a drum. It’s kind of like a ta-da, or a there it is, or a voila. Bada bing, that’s great.

All right. Well, Thomas, we’ve covered a lot of ground here, and I hope we’ve done some justice to these big issues that you wanted to address.

You have. You absolutely have. And I thank you guys very much for addressing this for me. And by all means, I work at a big hospital, and everyone in this entire hospital is going to hear this show, and hopefully it will turn them on to be regular listeners.

Wow. There will be miracles in the critical care ward.

Absolutely, indeed. Thomas, that sounds like an offer we can’t refuse.

Oh, thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot for calling. Allison, have a great weekend.

Okay, take care. All right, take care of yourself.

Bye-bye now. Bye-bye.

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