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Jun 6, 2008

Do You Even Know What A Banshee Is?

I don’t know if you have ever realized this, but a lot of motoring jurnos seem to use the phrase ‘revs like a banshee’ with a regularity that matches the regularity of Bush's bloopers. Anyhow, it all sounds nice, but do they even know what a banshee is? I’m not sure they do.

A banshee is:

A 2D shoot-em-up released by Core Design, circa 1994.
A banshee is also a member of the X-Men and first appeared in 1967.
It is also the name of an audio player for Linux OS.
And last but not the least; the banshee is a part of the Irish folk lore, supposed to be some sort of a crying ghost women.


The last one is quite interesting. It is derived from the term bean si. The term was used to describe the women who would cry at funerals. The louder they cried, the better it was and more the demand for them (check Rudali for Indian counterpart). Later they were referred to as the ghost who would cry and wail and warn of an impending death in the family.

Now if, according to these jurnos, the engine ‘revs like a banshee’, do they mean that the engine is warning of an impending death? If yes, then whose death is it? The car or themselves? I think the term has been used way too often by this ignorant lot. Maybe they ought to use something else too. Just for a change.

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