Origin of the “Big Mahoff”

Hi there. You have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. Yeah, this is Doug Bradley. How are you?

I’m calling you from Madison, Wisconsin.

What can we do for you today?

I’ve got a term that my dad used when I was a young man growing up in Sioux in the 1950s.

And all the interesting words that came into our household were from my mother’s side of the family because she was Albanian and Italian.

And so I got a lot of that.

But my dad, when at one point he was getting promoted in a sales job he had, was having his boss come over for dinner and was really fluffy about this and everything, all the preparations.

And he kept referring to the guy as a big Mahath.

Big Mahath.

Yeah, Mahath.

I’m guessing it’s M-A-H-O-F-F.

And I remember I quizzed my mom about this.

I think I even later asked my dad, who sort of blew me off.

But, you know, I just, you know, when this guy came, I thought maybe he’d be regal.

He’d be on a camel and have a special kind of hat on.

I was getting these images of what a Mahath was, but he was just like anybody else.

You know, he was the guy that came over for dinner.

But and it stayed with me for years.

I never did get, you know, I was my folks who passed away and I never did get back to that story.

And, of course, knowing about your show and loving your show and what you guys are able to do, I thought, you know, if there’s anybody that can help explain to me what a big Mahath is, it’s you guys.

So this is in Philadelphia, right?

Yes.

Yep.

It was in southwest Philly.

Yep.

This term is mainly only used in Philadelphia and surrounding areas.

It’s really astonishing.

We have looked at this on the show before, about 10 years ago, but I’ve done some work since then in trying to track this down because it’s one of the great puzzles.

Somebody else who’s looked into it is Mark Bowden.

I think that’s how you say his name, B-O-W-D-E-N, who wrote a piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1996.

-huh, that’s our old paper, yeah.

And he couldn’t find the origins either, and he asked a bunch of people who would know, including some of my colleagues in the dictionary world.

And he got a lot of response from listeners as well, and people had some theories.

But the results were inconclusive.

Nobody really knew where Mahaff came from,

But everyone agreed it meant, you know, a big week,

A big deal, a big cheese.

Here’s what we’ve learned since 1996 when Mark published that piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

By 1949, Mahaff, with or without the big, had started appearing regularly in newspapers,

Especially to refer to sports figures.

You know, we’ve often talked on the show how when there’s new language, it often appears in the sports columns first because editors are more likely to give sports writers a little more leeway to be colorful and slangy and colloquial.

But in February of 1951, the terms use exploded because on the 19th of that month, William Weisberg of Philadelphia testified in the congressional hearings before a special committee to investigate organized crime in interstate commerce.

I know that’s a fancy title.

Basically, these were mob hearings to figure out what parts of the crime world certain mob members may have controlled and who was in the mob.

And he was asked by Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee whether people in Philadelphia called Harry Stromberg, also in Philadelphia, the Big Mahaff.

Now, Stromberg was the name he was born with, but he went by Rosen.

And by all accounts, he was indeed the leading mobster in Philadelphia at the time.

And absolutely the big Mahaff.

And Weisberg was his bodyguard and driver.

So this is in Congress.

It was widely broadcast at the time on radio and television.

And it made the headlines.

It was chewed over in the press at some length.

It was on the front pages of newspapers.

I’m talking the word Mahaff itself appeared in headlines on the front pages of newspapers.

And from that point on in 1951, the word’s use exploded.

However, it still kind of only stuck in Philadelphia.

So what’s the origin?

That’s what you’re wondering, right?

All this talk, where does it come from?

And the answer, Doug, I’m afraid to say, is nobody knows.

You’re kidding.

But, Doug, I’ve been holding something back.

Okay.

There are four earlier uses of the term I can find between about 1936 and 1940-something in the Philadelphia Inquirer, still in Philadelphia.

And they’re in a column about bridge, the card game.

You’re kidding.

No.

That’s the first place I find the term.

Ever. Anywhere.

It’s in a bridge column.

And so it’s a column by Robert Clifton.

He’s the guy who used it repeatedly.

And he even includes it in a glossary with a definition.

And what he writes is, Mahof, noun implying size or potency, equally applicable to Ozzy Jacoby.

I’ll explain that in a second.

A two bid or 70% duplicate score.

Now, I don’t understand contract bridge, but those of you who do may know something about that.

Ozzy Jacoby was one of the most famous contract bridge players of his era.

So anyway, he’s defined this term in 1936.

So why would it pop up in a bridge column?

Was it already in the era of Philadelphia?

Does it come from the bridge world?

We don’t know.

We have no idea.

Oh, my God, that’s so amazing.

And it’s so good of you that’s spelunking to be able to find this.

So the guy, indeed, at least at dinner that night, was on behalf of some sort.

But, you know, given my mother’s family, being Italian-Albanian, they could have been Mahavs too, and I didn’t know it.

But every time this is talked about in newspapers or on our radio show or any time it comes up,

People always want to bring up the fact that it sounds a lot like the word maher, M-A-C-H-E-R, in Yiddish,

Which is a kind of bigwig, but sometimes a showy or pretentious bigwig.

But there are a lot of linguistic reasons that that doesn’t really work.

Another theory is that it may come from an Irish phrase,

Mofaska, which means my business.

I’m sorry for the mispronunciation.

I don’t speak Irish.

Yeah.

And what’s interesting about that phrase meaning my business,

It’s a really good parallel to La Cosa Nostra,

Which is another name for the mafia, which means our thing.

Oh, man.

And that kind of meaning similarity is really interesting, right?

God, this is so fascinating.

It’s like a whole different journey, a different culture.

I know.

I love it.

I love the big Mahaf.

I love these regional words, Martha.

Isn’t it wonderful when they don’t really leave home?

It’s like Mahaff belongs to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, right?

Right.

It’s a Philadelphia word.

And just so much fun that had you not mentioned where you grew up, we would be on it.

Yeah, if I’d have said Madison, forget it.

But now, you know, given I grew up as a kid in Philly, and that’s where the big Mahaffs were.

Yeah, I guess you don’t hear it in Madison, huh?

No.

No, not much.

Keith, you guys, you’re terrific.

Thanks so much.

Yeah, our pleasure, Doug.

Take care of yourself.

You too.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Thanks for calling.

What do they say where you live?

Give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send it to us in email.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.