In my posting on Padre Antonio Soler, I quoted a bit about
A fandango once attributed to Soler, and probably more often performed than any other work of his, is now thought by some to be of doubtful authorship.
and was reminded how much I enjoy the word fandango — a straightforward case of “word attraction” (the opposite of word rage). So I’ve gone on to play with the word.
On the word, from NOAD2:
1 a lively Spanish dance [in triple time] for two people [or sometimes solo, or in ensemble], typically accompanied by castanets or tambourine. [YouTube video here]
2 a foolish or useless act or thing: the Washington inaugural fandango.
ORIGIN mid 18th cent.: Spanish, of unknown origin.
Wikipedia gives further figurative meanings:
As a result of the extravagant features of the dance, the word fandango is used as a synonym for “a quarrel,” “a big fuss,” or “a brilliant exploit.”
(Fandango is also a corporation in the United States that sells movie tickets via telephone and Internet, but I don’t know the history of the name.)
I went to the RhymeZone site to collect expressions that rhyme with fandango (taking some license with /æ/ for some of these words, /a/ for others, and variation for some others). Mango and tango, but also a Japanese food word, dango, plus a collection of proper names.
dango. From Wikipedia:
Dango … is a Japanese dumpling and sweet made from mochiko (rice flour), related to mochi. It is often served with green tea. Dango is eaten year-round, but the different varieties are traditionally eaten in given seasons. Three to four dango are often served on a skewer.
Bizango. From Wikipedia on voodoo:
Besides regular priests who belong to ordinary voodoo temples, there are secret societies in Africa, the Bizango.
Place names. From Pennsylvania to El Salvador.
Venango County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania [northwest PA, between Pittsburgh and Erie] (link)
The City of Durango is the Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of La Plata County, Colorado (link)
Durango … is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, compose the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is located in Northwest Mexico. (link)
Ilopango is a town in the San Salvador department of El Salvador. It is a few miles east of the nation’s capital, San Salvador. It is located near Lake Ilopango, the country’s largest lake (link)
Near rhymes (beyond /æ/ – /a/). RhymeZone doesn’t note capitalization for these, since many of the spellings represent several different words, differently capitalized. Here they are, lowercased, arranged by number of letters in the spelling:
5: angle, banco, bongo, campo, canto, rambo, sambo, santo
6: blanco, brando, franco, quango, tangle
7: orlando, taranto
8: commando, fernando
9: bel canto, esperanto
Play with them. Let them roll off your tongue as sheer sound.
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