Bomboclaat

About

Bomboclaat, also spelled Bumbaclaat, Bumbclaat and Bumbaclot, is an expletive Jamaican Patwah slang word for a menstrual pad or toilet paper. The phrase is used as an insult or an interjection expressing disgust or anger. In 2019, the phrase became a meme on Twitter that was mistook for a synonym to the memes sco pa tu manaa or "caption this."

Origin

According to Dictionary.com,^[1] the term came into use in 1956. They write:

Bombo (or bumba) likely comes from West African words like the Fante bumbo, referring to the vulva but likely similar to the English bum, or “butt.” Clot (or claat) is cloth, in keeping with Jamaican English, which often drops a TH sound for a hard T (e.g., fit instead of fifth).

Together, then, bumboclaat is literally the cloth for the nether regions--either a menstrual cloth (rather than disposable pads) or a cloth for wiping your butt (in the days before widespread toilet paper). Bumbaclot has become a common rendering of the term in the Jamaican diaspora, such as in South London.

On July 10th, 2003, Urban Dictionary ^[2] user madd dogg defined the term, "a word from da patois language of da jamaican people, originally bumba is ass and claat iis cloth hence asswipes or a fuckin stupid person like ur momma." The post has received more than 510 upvotes in 16 years (shown below).

Spread

Twitter Usage

On September 3rd, 2019, Twitter^[3] user @rudebwoy_lamz shared two images of Winslow Thelonious Oddfellow from the American animated comedy series CatDog with the caption "Bomboclaat." The post received more than 13,000 likes and 3,300 retweets in less than two months (shown below).

Some responded by following the format: Captioning side-by-side reaction image with Bomboclaat (example below, left and center).

Others criticized the use of the phrase. Twitter^[4] user @tessellated tweeted, "fam bomboclaat does not mean sco pa tu manaa please stop this immediately" (shown below, right).

Twitter^[5] user @rin_becalm tweeted, "Hi non-Jamaicans: The term 'bumboclaat' or 'bomboclaat' does not mean what you think it does. It is not a greeting, a question, or a means of asking ones opinion. It is an expletive, one used to express shock, anger, excitement, or befuddlement. So stop using it. Thanks." The tweet received more than 3,800 likes and 2,000 retweets in less than one month (shown below).

Several media outlets have covered the Twitter usage of the term, including The Daily Dot, ^[6] HuffPost,^[7] GQ^[8] and more.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References