Search: boffo origin etymology
Why: Someone wrote on Corbett's wall:
Boffo box office to you guys tonight!!!I guess I have heard that word before, but I don't really know what it's supposed to mean. It sounds like something a character in Bridget Jones's Diary would say.
Hang on. Lol:
Answer: "Extremely successful"! Or an uproarious laugh. Or a line in a play or film that gets an uproarious laugh. It can be an adjective or a noun.
Origins are unknown, but it is actually an Americanism that was first used in the entertainment trade magazine Variety in the 1940s. Theories:
- It has something to do with blending the words "box office."
- It comes from an alteration of either buffo, bouffe, or boffola.
- It comes from a Yorkshire dialect, where "boff" meant "an alarm, a sudden shock"
- In show-biz slang, a "boff" might have been a "hit"
The More You Know: A comic strip called "Mister Boffo" has been in syndication since 1986. I have never heard of it.
I also don't "get" it, I don't think.
