Italian colloquialism for "of course"?

[Hellfrick]

This subject heading may be misleading, since I'm not 100% sure the source is Italian. However, my father used to emphatically agree to things by saying something sounds like "Ma shu." He peppered his English with occasional German (from his mother), Italian (from his dad) and Yiddish (from friends), but it was predominantly Italian. I've only ever heard it used one other place, only one time: An old live recording of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and Dean said it to Jerry.

Is anyone familiar with this expression for "of course," "certainly," etc?

(Also, please let me know if there's a better forum/thread to ask this question.)

Thanks--and stay healthy!

[lavengro]

Possibly "ma certo" ? That is the closest I can think of, but I'm not an Italian speaker.

I think you would have to be pretty marinated to make "ma certo" sound like "ma shu", but I understand he was not adverse to being pretty pickled much of the time. (Dean Martin, not your father.)

[Cainntear]

Maybe it's not a "colloquialism" but rather a local language feature...? Remember many Italian-American families left Italy before a lot of them would even have learned any Italian.

[Doitsujin]

This subject heading may be misleading, since I'm not 100% sure the source is Italian. However, my father used to emphatically agree to things by saying something sounds like "Ma shu."

Hi might have said "ma sure." However, I've found only one reference for this in the book "Houses with Names": The Italian Immigrants of Highwood, Illinois:

Parenti called and asked me if I wanted to come to Kankakee. "Ma sure indemma, fin a New York." --"I'd go as far as New York."

Hopefully, a native speaker will shine some light on this.

[dampingwire]

"ma sure."

That sounds perfectly plausible to me, a bit like "sciarappa".

It took me years to work out that when my Mum was talking about "cia place" (with place pronounced the French way) she was talking about an area called "Chapel Ash"). So mixing Italian and English (and, in my Mum's case, French-like pronunciation because her dialect is Piacentino) is, in my experience, perfectly normal. Reverse engineering it can take some time though

[Saim]

I wouldn’t be surprised to hear something like maʃɛrt (“ma shert”) or maʃɛrtə (“ma shertuh”) in Neapolitan or matʃɛrtu (“ma chertu”) in Sicilian.

According to this dictionary, “sciù” exists as an interjection in Neapolitan, equivalent to Italian “puh” (which is apparently used to express disgust or contempt).

There’s also “sciuto” (shut or shutuh), which means “came out” (“uscito” in Italian).

[Hellfrick]

Wow. Thanks for the wealth of suggestions to ponder! I'll run these past my mother; something here might help her remember if my father ever gave her "an origin story"!

[Serpent]

Definitely seems like "ma sure"