Okay a nutty question, especially for the over 40 crowd. The dilemna that haunts me when I hear The Steve Miller Band on the radio performing "The Joker", is the line, I am the "pompatus" of love. What does he mean by the "pompatus". I am game for all sorts of interpretations. And while we are on it, what other songs do you know of, when the artist/writer makes up a word for that song. What is it, and what do they mean?

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Offer up your best defence, this is the end of the innocence. "Don Henley"
That which does not kill us will only make us stronger. "Steel Magnolias"

Cecil Adams can tell you.

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Wikipedia´s got a take on it, too (looks cut-pasted from SD comments).

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"As truth is gathered, I rearrange,
Inside out, outside in - Perpetual change." - A British rock band

I always assumed it was just some nonsense word. I'd rather be the platypus of love.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

OK you are

Sure looks like a Latin word:and pompa is Italian for pump.

This has been one of my "burning questions" for years!!!

PLEASE somebody have the answer!!!

I can't die without knowing if it's a real word. I have a $50 bet dating back to 1986 that it's a nonsense made-up word. I would sure like to collect that 50 bucks, plus inflation!

Read the links and collect your $50, my friend.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Or "pomp". Like in "Pomp and Circumstance", or "Pompa Magna", or "pompous" .

According to my dictionary, pompa as "pump" comes from French and not from Latin (I don't even know if Romans had pumps in the modern sense).
Pompa as "pomp" comes from Latin (which got it from Ancient Greek).

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papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

There's also a line in the song about being a "midnight toker," which may at least partily explain the origin of "pompetous."

The Pompatus of Love?? Personally I always associated it with an image of a male organ that was all blown-up and "pompous"!!! In general, if there's ever something you don't understand in a rock song, it is usually a reference to sex or genitals, LOL.

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"I am happy to report that once again the universe is doing just great, thank you, purring with perfection, ever-changing same as always. Light is still cruising along at 186,000 miles per second, and the expanding universe shows no signs of contracting. At this rate, it won't be long before they'll have to let the photon belt out another notch."
Swami Beyondananda's 2007 State of the Universe address

Yes, but as the links will show you, that isn't true in this case. (Besides, that assumption leaves out the drug references.)

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I always hear it as 'Poppadums of love' (Raita optional)

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N6MAA10816
Faber '62 ΔTX
Are you a Bright?

Okay, what's a "Poppadums"?

Delicious starter/appetizer/entree for an Indian meal ('Anglicised' indian that is, I think curry has been polled as the UK's favourite food!) traditionally served with lashings of lager beer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poppadum

Thought the spelling looked iffy, but no it's as valid as any
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexper...lling/poppadom
& my mate has just suggested 'Indian contraceptive' Hmm..
RE: the song & OP I have wondered for many years if he wanted to sing pomposity but shortened/slurred it to fit.

The links say no.

I am pretty certain the "pompatus of love" is a satire from ancient Rome about the comedy of errors that love is.

Are you joking or being serious? Why bump a year-old thread?

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

I think it sounds like an anatomical term for female genitalia.

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The dose makes the poison--Paracelsus (1493-1541) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus

I don't know. That's why I'm asking--Noclevername

Intelligence may not be clearly defined, but you know stupid when you see it--Noclevername

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge--Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

I would assume that they did, because they brought in water from aquaducts, but they had baths and must have had pumps to bring the water up. Somewhere on the net it said that there was a "pump room" at Bath, but I don't know if that means "in the modern sense." Certainly they didn't have electric pumps.

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As above, so below

Steve Miller must have channeled J. Joyce to come up with a neologism.

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"As truth is gathered, I rearrange,
Inside out, outside in - Perpetual change." - A British rock band