football

It is the offseason, a time for self-reflection, a time to spend our energy focusing on the things in life that are more important than football. If you're like me, there are a series of burning questions that begin to bubble up into your consciousness this time of year demanding to be dealt with. One of the recurring questions that has been simmering in my mind all season, and I write this piece assuming that I am not alone in this, has been: Why does Brian always say "Cumong, man?"

Whenever I would see this in print, I would wonder: is this how Brian pronounces "come on"? If so, why? Is this a thing people say? It seems to have caught on to the point where other people on the board use it as well. What is the origin of this spelling? Has the Michigan accent evolved since I left? I decided to do some research. I present to you what I have learned about the etymology of "cumong".

First, is this phrase mgoblog-specific? The evidence supports the notion that the term is indeed highly associated with this blog. There is actually an entry in the Urban Dictionary, which defines the term as "A word Alabama Crimson Tide fans use to exhort their team before a key play or belt out with a fist pump in celebration." The example given is CUMONG Tide, run the dad gum ball. Git this! However, as I will cover later, this entry was most likely added by an mgoblogger. Outside of that, there seems to be little to no usage of this word on the English-speaking web, with the exception of mgoblog, where its usage is frequent.

How do we characterize this phenomenon linguistically? The word is an apparently intentional misspelling of "come on". It is a kind of metaplasmus, but more specifically it appears to be a version of sensational spelling, in which a word is deliberately misspelled for effect. Examples of sensational spelling include "Froot Loops" and "Led Zeppelin".

Phonologically, this spelling portrays a shift in place of articulation of the final consonant of "come on," moving it from an alveolar nasal to a velar nasal. In other words, the contact between the tongue and the roof of the mouth simply moves further back when producing this variation.

Historically, on this site the first usage came on November 14th, 2012 in this post describing the Michigan-Northwestern football game. In that post, Brian writes:

Git R Done, for values of R that equal racism. If you don't follow me on twitter you missed the saga of the Larry The Cable Guy clan in my immediate vicinity, a group of redneck yahoos that said a lot of things like "LEZ GO CUMONG" and "GIT EM CUMONG," which was annoying when they did that really loudly after a four yard run--now my hopes are all up and it's second and six--but mostly harmless.

I tracked down that original series of tweets. I present to you the first time the phrase "cumong" was used in mgoblog history:

they cloned larry the cable guy and put four of them behind me

— mgoblog (@mgoblog) November 10, 2012

send help

— mgoblog (@mgoblog) November 10, 2012

LEZ GO CUMONG

— mgoblog (@mgoblog) November 10, 2012

Note that the Urban Dictionary entry, which is the only known instance of this phrase on the web outside of mgoblog, was added on November 15th, 2012, one day after Brian made his post highliting the term. This timing strongly suggests that it is not an independent phenomenon. After the initial Nov 15th post, it appeared again over the next couple of days, first in the defensive UFR as a figure caption and then in the offensive UFR. The phrase picked up steam in 2013 and by October of 2014 became an actual tag on the site.

EDIT: By popular demand, a chart! This is number of unique google results by month on the mgoblog site for the word cumong. Notice that there was a sizable jump in its popularity this football season:

In light of the information that spelling of this phrase was intended to portray the dialect of several "redneck yahoo" fans, we can re-evaluate its literary significance. It seems now that the phrase is in fact a kind of eye dialect, a misspelling often used to convey the ignorance of the speaker, even though the spelling may correspond to how the word is generally pronounced. This is the same device Dickens used to convey the way his uneducated characters spoke, and was a common feature in Mark Twain's writing. (That said, I can find no academic work that confirms the substitution of the nasal alveolar with the velar consonant in dialects from the American South).

I asked Brian to comment on this, and he confirmed that the phrase indeed originated from the a group of Larry the Cable Guys sitting around him during that game. I hope you've enjoyed this foray in to mgoblog history and culture, and that I have helped to shed some light on a question that was on all of our minds.

It's originally being reported by some paper I have never heard of, but CBS Sports is citing said paper as "it was not a fit between the two sides."  Would have been a nice landing spot for Brady.  Also apparently it would be a minor cost savings for UM. (I believe Enos was making $350K or something).

Hoke's contract with Michigan calls for him to receive $3 million after being fired without cause, but it stipulates he must try to mitigate U-M's responsibility for the payment. He must make "reasonable efforts to obtain other football-related employment (such as a head or assistant coach of a professional football team, head men's football coach of an NCAA Division I team or media commentator)."

Per Steve Wiltfong at 247. Hello Ty Wheatley Jr? Also, that random guy from the Harbaugh coaching search is saying on Twitter that Wheatley cancelled his visit to Oregon.

[ED:BiSB - He just put in a Crystal Ball prediction for Pickard to Cuse, with some rumblings that it's heading in that direction. Resume your days.]

Title says it all.  Thought with Khalid Hill/Bunting and perhaps Clark - Keith might go back to DE to provide depth in an unproven part of the team but it appears not.  Best of luck sir.

Keith Heitzman will also not return to #Michigan as a fifth-year senior.

— Joshua S. Henschke (@JoshuaHenschke) January 30, 2015

Some of the lengths these crazy coaches of other our teams will go - visiting a recruits mom at her work?  Boy oh boy.

A recruiting story here on Smith - focus of story is how manly manly Richt was, but then a blurb mid story about how Harbaugh did everything Richt did.... then more.

  Bigger picture it is always amusing to think the things these multi millionaire coaches have to go through to land a 17 year old's signature.

There have been several celebrity sightings this week in Macon Count. Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin was there on Tuesday, while Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh made the rounds on Thursday.

Harbaugh wants Smith so badly that he went to see Roquan’s mother at her job at Fort Valley State. “  (Harbaugh) visited her at work, and he also visited with Roquan’s aunt and uncle,” Harold said. “He did the same things as Coach Richt. He visited some people for us, and shook some hands. All three of those men coming here was a big deal to our community. It gave people something to get excited about. It gives our younger players motivation to work hard.”

Per HS coach he is headed to UCLA (again with those guys) still undecided.  Sounds like he is waiting for NSD.

“The thing that surprised me is that he left tonight to go to UCLA, and he really doesn’t have his mind made up,” Harold said. “That’s what really surprised me after speaking with him.

“Once he gets back from UCLA, he’s going to talk with his family and me. We’re going to pray about it. He plans on having a decision by Tuesday night. It’s a big decision in a young man’s life. He’s going to seek the Lord for direction, and talk to his family and me.

“Next Wednesday will be an exciting day. We’re excited about having the national media come to our little community. We’ll be able to show off the hard work of our young men to the rest of the nation.”