Snopes looks at what the word "Moomba" really means:

The parade was to be held on the Labour Day holiday, thereby undermining the Trade Unions march and the historic significance of the day.

Bill & Eric ran an Aboriginal artifacts stall in the Dandenongs, but were staunch unionists in their younger days.

Bill had a dry sense of humour. He agreed to provide a suitable name for the parade. Friends were surprised at this, knowing how Bill felt about the City Fathers and their business promotion parade.

When he offered the name Moomba, and the organisers accepted it, Bill gave the Aboriginal community a great gift. It has been the trigger for spontaneous laughter for many years since.

While the Moomba organisers, in blissful ignorance, give the translation as "let's get together and have fun," every Koori knows that "Moom" means backside, and "ba" means . . . well, um, hole . . .

Posted by: mark | http://donotuselifts.net/ | Sun Feb 8 10:52:18 2004

According to the Snopes page, it's "mum", pronounced as "moom". Which makes me wonder about that Icelandic (?) band, "mum" (with two dots over the u).

I supposed I'd better ask, before everyone starts throwing things... two dots over a "u" give it an "oo" sound, right? Or is that the tilde?

Posted by: Graham | http:// | Sun Feb 8 12:04:10 2004

Yes, Múm is pronounced "moom", apparently. If you pronounce it "mum" the cool police will arrest you.

Posted by: Mario | http:// | Sun Feb 8 23:11:46 2004

What's are those children's books with the moomen-whatsits? They are Icelandic aren't they? Sort of like McDOnald's characters but without all the negative stuff.

Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Mon Feb 9 02:31:54 2004

The Moomintrolls? I believe they're Norwegian, actually.

Posted by: toby | http:// | Mon Feb 9 04:36:12 2004

Finnish, actually, but who's counting?

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