In 1955, the conservative government of Melbourne decided to rename the local version of the traditional May 1 "Labour Day" parade. They settled on the theme "Let's get together and have fun!", which they identified as the meaning of the word Moomba in a local Aboriginal language, a word that they therefore adopted as the new name of their May 1 parade. According to this story at Laputan Logic, they were misled by their language consultants, and Moomba should actually be interpreted as an impolite comment on the whole re-branding process.
Posted by Mark Liberman at April 28, 2004 11:31 AM