Help On Some Mal Lingo by Jongsstraw

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Help On Some Mal Lingo

POSTED BY: JONGSSTRAW
UPDATED: Sunday, March 9, 2008 20:59
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Friday, October 12, 2007 1:40 AM

Out Of Gas : Mal says to Kaylee that she needs to " suss up " what happened. I guess it means "figure out"...but where does it come from?

Serenity Movie : The "Love" speech...Mal says " before she "keens"..Okay, what's that?

Thanks!

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Friday, October 12, 2007 1:45 AM

JADEHAND

suss out

Definitions
suss
sus (slang)
verb susses, sussed, sussing

1. To discover, assess or establish something, especially by investigation or intuition.
Example: soon sussed how the video worked2. To suspect something.

noun

1. A suspect.
2. Suspicion or suspicious behaviour.
3. Shrewdness; sharp-wittedness.

Etymology: 1930s: a shortened form of suspect or suspicion.

Phrasal Verb: suss something out

To investigate, inspect or examine.
Example: sussed out the nightlifeTo work out or understand.
Example: couldn't suss out his motives

Keen \Keen\, v. i.
To wail as a keener does. {Ireland}

A man who walks the Earth

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Friday, October 12, 2007 1:53 AM

JONGSSTRAW

Thanks Jadehand.

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Friday, October 12, 2007 3:57 AM

CLEMENTINE

O.k. How about in Serenity?
Fanty: That's a good crew, you've got there.
Mal: Yeah, their a fine bunch of reubens.

I don't understand reuben in this context.

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Friday, October 12, 2007 7:39 AM

JONGSSTRAW

Yep, that's another one I don't know.

"Rube" comes to mind...meaning a novice, a rookie, but I don't know for sure.

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Friday, October 12, 2007 7:50 AM

CLEMENTINE

Jadehand, do you know? I saw a reference once to the "creative use of slang" but it still didn't say what it meant.

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Friday, October 12, 2007 7:52 AM

VIOLYNS

At first, I thought it pertained to the painter, Pieter Pauwel Rubens < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Paul_Rubens>, but it might be referring to the slang term for farmers which is "reubens." I'm not sure...

-----
~mia
"I will never cease to fly if held down."

Serenifly Costumes http://serenifly.tripod.com

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Friday, October 12, 2007 8:07 AM

CLEMENTINE

Quote:
Originally posted by violyns:
it might be referring to the slang term for farmers which is "reubens."

I thought that might be too and it's the origin of the Rube term that Jongsstraw refers to above. But it doesn't make sense to me that Mal calls his crew "farmers" or rural people. It may be true of Mal and Kaylee but not the others so much.

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Friday, October 12, 2007 8:32 AM

FREEBROWNCOAT

Reubens refers to marks at a carny or country bumpkins. Always wondered about that line. Never liked it.

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Friday, October 12, 2007 8:34 AM

JONGSSTRAW

These "possibilities" are a bit remote, but :

Paul REUBENS, aka Pee Wee Hermann....maybe even in 500 years his legacy lives (was in the original Buffy movie)

The REUBEN sandwich...the favorite food of the Thermians in GalaxyQuest

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Friday, October 12, 2007 9:02 AM

WALKDOGGER

I found this link, but I don't know if it's connected to the line Mal says.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=236&letter=R

-------------------------------------------

-My shiny Serenity video.

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Friday, October 12, 2007 1:24 PM

JADEHAND

My thought was he meant it in this context, although he was being sarcastic, as it seemed Fanty and Mingo were disparaging his crew, or at least making little jabs.

rube
\ˈrüb\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Rube, nickname for Reuben
Date:
1891

1 : an awkward unsophisticated person : rustic
2 : a naive or inexperienced person

A man who walks the Earth

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Thursday, November 8, 2007 7:16 AM

ROGUESCHOLAR

The line "a fine bunch of reubens" is likely a quote from a song called "Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway", from the George Cohan musical by the same name. At any rate, it is an identical phrase.

In the song, "reubens" seems to be a shortened version of "rustic reubens", a slang term for farmers/country folk.

Of course, since the song was written around 1905, and Mal is speaking more than six hundred years later, the meaning of the line may have changed somewhat.

My two cents.

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Sunday, March 9, 2008 8:59 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Just saw the film "The Bank Job" at the cinema.
Based on a true story, placed in London in 1971. Jason Statham character says they are going to "suss it out" meaning they will check out the bank, case it.
It was a good movie, also. Maybe the best one in the theaters currently.

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