The Big Mahoff

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Kevin McGuffin from Cheshire, Connecticut.

Well, hello, Kevin. Welcome.

Hi, Kevin.

Hi, how are you?

Doing fine. What’s going on there in Connecticut?

I have a question for you. It’s about a word that particularly my parents’ generation used. And I’m originally from Philadelphia. I moved to Connecticut about 10 years ago. I haven’t heard anybody up here use this term, but it’s mahaf. And it’s used to describe somebody who’s a big shot or a chief or something like that. My mother always used to use it in a sentence, particularly when she was admonishing me and my brothers and sisters about, who do you think you are, the Big Mahath, or something of that effect. It was typically meant as a way to put people in their place, I think. The term itself is only, from what I can understand, nobody up here in Connecticut uses it. It typically is something that I’ve only heard from people in Philadelphia. It’s not where I originally am from.

Kevin, have you seen it spelled?

Yeah, I’ve seen it M-A-H-O-F-F. And my parents are of Irish descent and typically have lived in Irish neighborhoods in Philadelphia, and I always thought that maybe it was some reference to some political boss or some big shot ward leader or something like that from those areas. But I’m not really sure.

That sounds like a reasonable guess. You’ve got a good chunk of the story as we know it there. It turns out that I’ve done some looking into this term about five years ago. And a couple things. As far as the big boss, it was the title given to a big boss, but he was a Russian Jew and not an Irishman.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, his name was Harry Stromberg, or usually known as Nick Rosen. And he came to light to the public’s attention in 1951 because there were some hearings in Congress about crime and corruption. And Senator Kefauver of Tennessee, is that how you say his last name? K-E-F-A-U-V-E-R?

I think so. Estes Kefauver?

Yeah, that’s right. He was leading some hearings on this. And so there was a whole presentation about some shirts that had possibly been given to a police superintendent in Philadelphia. And this man, Nick Rosen, was mentioned as somebody who was known as a big Mahath. Unfortunately, and this is 1951, mind you, unfortunately none of the stories from 1951 is any kind of mention made that this term is unusual. So even though these stories appeared in the Chicago newspapers, nobody in Chicago said, what’s the deal with this term Mahath?

Interesting. So it wasn’t in quotation marks or anything like that.

It was actually in quotation marks, but they made no effort whatsoever to explain Mahath. So I’ve looked into this over the last four or five years, and every time I meet somebody who might be able to help me, I ask them about it. I don’t think there’s a word in Russian that can match this. There may be a family name that could match this, but some of my contacts who are Russian experts who know the language thoroughly, not only just to speak it and to write it, but also etymologically, claim that it’s not a common name and that it wouldn’t be spelled that way nor pronounced that way in English. The Irish or the Gallic connection are iffy at best. There’s no real connection there at all that we can find. So we don’t really know. All we know is that it was used to apply to this Russian Jewish man.

Now, is this a term that you hear outside of Philadelphia?

Very rarely, very, very rarely. And actually, interestingly, I don’t know if you know who Mark Bowden is. He wrote Black Hawk Down, which was when it turned into a movie. He wrote about this word in 1996, and I’m having a hard time tracking down a copy of that. But as I understand it, in that article, he’s specifically talking about the fact that he wanted to use the term Big Mahaff in a news story, but his editors nixed it. They said, nobody knows that word. Nobody knows what that is outside of Philadelphia. You can’t use that. And so even today, when you do find it, occasionally you’ll find it outside of Philadelphia. But it’s almost always by writers who are from Philadelphia or spend a great deal of time working at the Enquirer.

That’s right.

That’s what Bowden was an inquirer.

That’s right. He’s still a columnist there, I think.

Yeah.

Anyway, I hope that helps some, Kevin.

Okay.

Hey, thanks.

Yeah, no problem.

Thanks for calling.

Yeah, thanks for asking about that, Kevin.

I never heard of it.

That’s great.

Guys, take care.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Is there something that your parents said that still has you befuddled? Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673. That’s 1-877-WAYWORD. Or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.