Goombahs

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Marathon Grant. My name is Victoria Ting. I’m a geriatrics fellow at UT Southwestern Dallas, Texas. And my question is, you know, ever since I was a medical student, I’ve heard the word Goomba used colloquially to describe an impressive math noted on an imaging. So, for example, the other day, a large lung math was seen on a chest x-ray and elicited the response, oh, man, that looks like a Goomba to me.

So I was wondering if this term was used by physicians at other training institutions. Does it really mean what we’ve been using it for and what the word’s origin is?

All right, Victoria, that’s quite a mission there, to figure out a Goomba. So you’re looking at a CT scan results or an MRI screen or something like that, right?

That’s right. And everything’s normal except there’s this blot on it. It looks like the weather channel and a storm is coming in.

That’s right. Goomba.

Goomba. How do you spell that? Do you ever write that down or is it just verbal?

Just verbal. Well, the first thing to do is just kind of everybody’s thinking, oh, it’s the Italian-American term for a big buffoon or a goon, a big doofy guy, right? You know that term for Goomba, right, if you ever watch The Sopranos?

Yeah, that’s what Wikipedia said it was. It’s unrelated. Wikipedia is wrong. It’s unrelated to that. Again. But that said, there’s almost no chance, as far as we can tell, that Goomba used in medical imaging comes from the Italian-American term for, it’s changed a lot over the years.

These days, a Goomba is kind of like a big, doofy Italian-American fellow. It used to kind of just be a guy without any kind of pejorative or negative slant on it at all. And it varies quite a bit. But what we think it comes from is actually even more interesting to me.

We think it comes from Super Mario Brothers. The bad guys in Super Mario Brothers, a game that came out in 1985. They’re mushroom-shaped dudes with evil faces. They’re Goombas. And if you were playing that game, you would see a Goomba on your screen. Just like when you’re looking at a medical device and you’re looking at the live scan or the CRT or whatever, there’s a blob on your screen.

And it turns out that the medical term dates back to at least 1986. I can’t find it earlier than 1986. So maybe older physicians aren’t using this term, but younger ones are.

Well, no, they would be. If they were using it in 1986, that’s almost 30 years ago. They could easily be in their 50s or 60s and still using this term. Right? I mean, you have to have the, I’d assume it would be the younger doctors in the 1980s who were gaining. Who were playing Super Mario Brothers.

That’s what I’m thinking. Instead of taking their breaks. How does that sound, Victoria? Anything ring a bell there for you?

You know, what’s funny was my sister actually gave me that definition of Goomba from Super Mario. And I was like, surely that can’t be. But no, that makes sense. You know, and it’s all speculation. You listen to the show and you know that when we talk about word origins, it’s all theory and idea and speculation. So rarely can we prove it.

But I think the Super Mario Brothers theory has a lot more going for it than the Italian-American theory. Oh, yeah, definitely. And tons more. The idea that it’s got young people who probably are gaming at home in their downtime, if they have any downtime. And then they come and they spend time on these other screens.

Exactly. That’s what I was going to say. And you want to zap it, right?

Right. You want to zap it. Exactly. Yeah. You’re even going to zap it, right? Victoria, thank you so much for giving us a call. And best of luck, all right?

All right. Thank you so much, guys. Take care now. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. 877-929-9673 or send us email. That address is words@waywordradio.org.